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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27286630">The Wind Blows White</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapnJack/pseuds/CapnJack'>CapnJack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A House is Never Still [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A House is Never Still, F/M, Modern AU, Supernatural Elements, cs halloweek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:27:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27286630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CapnJack/pseuds/CapnJack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been two years since Killian Jones and Emma Swan managed to escape the clutches of Brooke House, two years of waiting for it all to catch up to them and two years of pretending the cracks in their happy ending don’t show. But when the vision appears to Killian of a young boy unearthing the dagger and the darkness they had long since buried, it’s a race against time to try and stop another innocent from befalling the same fate. If they have the strength to face it. </p><p>Sequel to ‘A House is Never Still’.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A House is Never Still [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 1 - i won't die in my sleep.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Here it is, happy (slightly early) Halloween everyone! :D Confession time, I’ve actually been kinda nervous about posting this for a little while? Fretting over whether this one won’t be as good or scary as the original - but I am officially making a concerted effort not to care about any of that, because this is how the next part of the story goes and I’m excited to tell it! I hope you guys like it. &lt;3</p><p>Warnings: Canonical character death and some certified Spooky Business™.</p><p>I'll be posting updates probably every other week, to allow me to stay ahead and keep the updates regular - but if it's any consolation, the chapters are usually over 10k! Enjoy!</p><p>**Editing to add in the AMAZING art done by HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) - I am so so grateful and happy you wanted to do this! Everybody give it some love &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>1. i won’t die in my sleep.</strong>
</p><p>-/-</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>The whispers woke her, as the whispers always did.</p><p>It took her a few dizzying moments to emerge completely from sleep, the vivid and fraught images of her restless dreaming spilling out into the darkness of the room. As usual, she could not move. Her muscles had seized, curled tightly around her stomach like a clenched fist, trembling with strain while her eyes blinked out into the dark. She could see the forest. The broad, sweeping trunks of old red oaks sprawled from the ground upward, their leaves stained crimson by blood while their bark wept tears the colour of potted ink. Only once observed did she really consider that there was so little in nature truly black, as pus the same shade as crows dribbled and oozed down the spines of every oak she could see.</p><p>Slowly, the numbness receded from her aching limbs, the reckless smears of her wakeless mind gave way to the shapes her eyes could make out, could <em>confirm</em> as being there, and like a prayer she whispered aloud every object she could see and smell and know was real.</p><p>“Chair,” she croaked, “desk. Lamp. Computer. Window. Gold –”</p><p>No. No gold. The basket of spun gold twine was the final little spill, tempting her to return to a nightmare it could kiss back into a dream.</p><p>She refused.</p><p>It disappeared.</p><p>The whispers had woken her, but once she rose she was alone in the dark.</p><p>Emma patted the bed beside her, and found the sheets bare and cool. He had been gone for some time already, then. Trying to suppress the growing tide of unease that always came from waking alone, she stood slowly, then stretched out her sore muscles. Sore from being clenched so tightly for what felt like hours. Usually Killian woke her before it reached this point, but clearly he hadn’t even been there for its beginning.</p><p>She sighed. Thought about calling him. The clock on her nightstand winked in and out. 2:17am.</p><p>There was no point, anyway. She knew where he’d be.</p><p>-/-</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>As usual, it was raining.</p><p>Beyond the stretch of porch in front of him, sheets of water fell in a relentless assault on the sodden ground, and Killian mopped at his already sweaty brow. The air was thick and moist, even this early in the morning, the height of an unusually punishing June. He let the downpour carry on for another few moments before ducking out into it, bending to lift the wide bowl he had left sitting on the grass a couple of minutes earlier. Now filled to the brim with rainwater, he brought it back underneath the shelter of the porch and laid it down on the ground.</p><p>He'd had that dream again. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.</p><p>There was a noise from not too far away, the screech of metal on concrete in the dark and the answering leap of a car horn out into the night air, but he tried to push it from his mind. This would never work if he couldn’t clear his thoughts. Folding his legs underneath him, Killian leant forward until he could see his reflection staring back at him from the bowl.</p><p>The surface of the water was inky black, the faint caresses of a breeze brushing ripples across the surface and making his reflection appear distorted, but he tried to see beyond that. Beyond his tired eyes and the hurt and the heat, to something more. Silently, he willed the dark pool to show him something else.</p><p><em>Show me the boy</em>, he asked out into the dark. <em>Show me the boy at the creek with the dagger</em>.</p><p>Even just the thought of the dagger, the curling blade they had sent hurling into the ravine, brought forth a rush of unwelcome and jarring memories. The dagger, floating in the middle of their circle, summoning a storm of black lightning and hurt and that nothing, that <em>awful</em> nothing, and Killian could feel something tugging at the centre of his chest, beckoning him forward.</p><p>He couldn’t see his reflection anymore. The surface of the water was blank.</p><p><em>Not like this</em>, he thought furiously, wrestling for control.</p><p>It wasn’t interested in his control. If he wanted to go deeper, he had to let himself fall. This was the bargain.</p><p>But –</p><p>He thought of her at home, in their bed, resting fitfully.</p><p>This was the bargain.</p><p><em>Emma</em>.</p><p>Killian gasped for air, which was when he realised the tightness in his chest was because he hadn’t taken a breath in a long time. He almost fell forward, and his right hand shot out to the deck of the porch to stop his face from crashing into the bowl – which was when he realised it was just a bowl of water again. His reflection stared back at him, breathing heavily, eyes wild and afraid.</p><p>If he wanted to go deeper, he had to let himself fall.</p><p>In his mind’s eye, he could see it perfectly. The sparkling summer day. The boy, knelt with his right arm in the creek before he pulled it out, and the dagger with it.</p><p>Dragging his eyes away from the bowl, he reached into his pocket for his phone. The clock on the display ticked onto 2:17am.</p><p><em>Still?</em> He thought, bewildered.</p><p>“You should be used to this sort of shit by now,” he muttered, before emptying the bowl onto the grass.</p><p>-/-</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>Henry only knew this because it had been 2:17am for a really long time already, but every time he checked the clock it was the same.</p><p>“Gotta be broken,” he mumbled, letting it drop back onto his nightstand. He told himself to roll over, to go back to sleep, Mom was making pancakes tomorrow and he didn’t want to be too tired to enjoy them, but something kept lingering at the edge of his awareness. Like a movement that was too quick to spot, or a sound too quiet to take shape, or that sensation after someone had taken a deep breath and they were waiting to speak, but wouldn’t utter a word until he looked at them.</p><p>Something was <em>different</em>, and it niggled at him like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch.</p><p>Somehow, he didn’t feel alone in his bedroom anymore.</p><p>He rolled over again, and this time his eyes instantly locked onto the shoebox he had stuffed under his dresser. He didn’t know how he knew, but he just did. Whatever he was feeling – it was coming from there, and the object he had hidden inside.</p><p>The dagger he had found at the creek.</p><p>It was… whispering to him.</p><p><em>Come</em>, it hissed out into the dark. <em>Listen</em>.</p><p>Henry’s hand tightened on the covers. Then he gently pushed them back and sat up.</p><p>-/-</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>Robert should have been home hours ago, and Belle couldn’t sleep for worry.</p><p>Her heart stuttered into hopefulness with every shadow that passed in front of the pawn shop window, but each one merely reached the other side with barely a glance back at her. She thought about calling the police, but surely they would dismiss her concerns so early into the morning. <em>It’s normal, ma’am</em>, they would say, and laugh about wives wondering after their wandering husbands. But this was different.</p><p>There was something about the way he had looked tonight, something wild and dangerous and careless in his eye, that had made her want to take three steps back every time he opened his mouth to speak. His tongue had lingered over softer sounds, tickled by a secret that only it knew. Like an animal, his sharp eyes had followed her around the shop as they closed, and when he kissed her it had sent a shiver down her spine.</p><p>It had frightened her. <em>He</em> had frightened her.</p><p><em>You’ll see</em>, he had said, when she asked where he was going. <em>You’ll see</em>.</p><p>Belle didn’t want to see. She just wanted him to come home. Her mind railed against the truth that had already started to creep into the corner of her heart.</p><p>Tonight, he had gone to Brooke House.</p><p>And Brooke House did not want to give him back.</p><p>-/-</p><p>Liam Jones didn’t care what fucking time it was.</p><p>Aching and exhausted, he kicked open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. The air was dank and cold, and smelled faintly of mildew, and he wrapped his coat tighter around him. Killian had needed three blankets before he could get to sleep earlier, the act of being inside the house only slightly warmer than the harsh early spring outside, but still sweat pooled at the base of Liam’s neck. His hands felt clammy with a layer of grit that he could never wipe away, and the moisture on his skin froze the moment he walked out into the night.</p><p>But under his skin, he burned with cold fury.   </p><p>He’d have to pretend to be Brennan and call the school again tomorrow, there was no way he could go in if he needed to be up for the rest of the night. He could send Killian over to Smee’s, that was one problem dealt with. The older man would take him into elementary school; but even that solution summoned the familiar rush of dread that came to Liam whenever he thought of his little brother moving into middle school next year. That would make everything so much more difficult to hide from concerned and nosy neighbours alike. </p><p>How had he let this happen? <em>Again</em>? They had been making <em>so</em> much progress.</p><p>Liam rubbed his eyes tiredly. He should just hurry up and drop out. He was good with his hands, he could make a living doing carpentry jobs, move to some quiet town upstate maybe –</p><p>
  <em>I’m just trying to prepare you for life’s big question, Liam. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>What kind of man are you going to be?</em>
</p><p>A quiet town upstate? He was really setting the bar low for pipe dreams these days.</p><p>Then there was always the chance Brennan might be himself again by morning; maybe he could call the school. Could drive Killian in. Maybe he’d be up before the sun rose like he used to, whistling a sea shanty and cooking them eggs over easy.</p><p> Now <em>there</em> was a pipe dream.</p><p>What time was it? A distracted pat of his jacket let him know his phone was still inside, but he wasn’t quite ready to go back in yet. It had to be late. Or early. Wednesday. The recycling went out on Wednesday. Which mean they were two days closer to Friday, which was the eighteenth. Water bill went out on the eighteenth.</p><p>Brennan hadn’t worked in weeks. They’d be short.</p><p>No heat <em>and</em> no water. The only things he could rely on in this house were the bricks and the mortar.</p><p>Why him? Why did it have to be <em>him?</em></p><p>Liam resisted the urge to scream. At the night, at the cold, at whatever curse had captured his family and refused to let them go.</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>And Liam wasn’t alone on the porch.</p><p>Once alerted to the intruder he stumbled backward, fumbling around for anything he could use as a weapon.</p><p>“Liam?”</p><p>Liam froze, his fist having clenched around the shard of a shattered flowerpot Brennan had destroyed last week.</p><p>The stranger hadn’t moved, stood silhouetted against the porch light.</p><p>He blinked. Willed his racing heart to slow.</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>-/-</p><p>It was 2:17am.</p><p>Except, no, it wasn’t.</p><p>Emma frowned and looked at her phone again, and the correct time stared back at her; 10:41am. How had she thought it said anything different?</p><p>She shook her head. Shit, she really needed to get more sleep. Her foot resumed tapping its restless beat on the floor of the almost empty corridor.</p><p>The entire hall was almost completely deserted, only the low murmur of conversation ricocheting against thin walls and tall ceilings, and everything was beige. Beige walls, beige floors, beige murals; she fucking <em>hated</em> beige, it was such a non-colour. Just pick something a bit more appealing and stick to it. But in her not-all-that-limited experience, most government buildings seemed to default to beige, and it was no different in the Seattle equivalent of the DMV. They had been led up to the customer service desk almost half an hour ago, but nobody seemed to care about how goddamn <em>important</em> this was, and her anxiety was climbing with every unattended second that ticked past.</p><p>Somewhere down the corridor a door opened, and Emma immediately whipped around to look at it. A broad, cheerful man offered her a bemused smile at the sudden sharp attention he was being given, before disappearing out through another door.</p><p>“You need to calm down,” Killian mused.</p><p>A glance at him confirmed his eyes were still closed, head tilted to lean back against the wall with his hands folded over his stomach, but her impatience had to have been obvious even without looking at her. She huffed in a way which she knew made her sound puerile, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement. From the moment they had been seated there he had stayed silent, and it was only fuelling her irritation that she couldn’t settle on whether that was because he was bored, tired or just giving her room to complain and agitate to her heart’s content. She preferred to know exactly what Killian was thinking.</p><p>The memory of waking alone the night before still smarted, and she had to keep reminding herself that it wasn’t Killian’s job to always be at her side on the off chance she didn’t sleep through the night. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and she knew whatever had caught his attention this time had kept him up at least an hour or so after she had summoned the courage to climb back into bed. She had still been awake when he slid back in beside her, but she had pretended to be asleep.</p><p>He had probably known she was doing it, which was why he had kissed an apology into her shoulder and held her a little tighter than usual.</p><p>It was hard to stay mad at him when he hadn’t <em>technically</em> done anything to make her mad – and he was already sorry about the thing he shouldn’t <em>have</em> to be sorry for.</p><p>Which just made her feel even worse.</p><p>“I hate beige,” she grumbled.</p><p>Killian let out a breath of warm, ticklish laughter, something that growled pleasantly in his throat. Some of her temper ebbed away. “I know,” he said. “I’ll take you somewhere pink after.”</p><p>“There’s that <em>big</em> hotel in Hawaii that’s totally pink, right? What do they call that?”</p><p>He opened his eyes and arched an eyebrow. “And maybe when our next skip is the Queen of England, we’ll be able to afford to go there.” Even less than thirty seconds of talking to him, properly, she could feel her mood lifting. He reached one of his hands into her lap, seeking hers, and she let him thread their fingers together. “I was actually thinking donuts. The strawberry glazed kind?”</p><p>Emma sighed happily. “Make it chocolate and you’ve got yourself a deal.”</p><p>He smiled warmly and squeezed her hand. “Whatever you want.”</p><p>His mood seemed light, but she wasn’t fooled. The way she would catch his eyes flickering carefully between her and the customer service desk in front of them told her all she really needed to know about the direction of his thoughts – they probably shared the same sinking feeling that had washed over her since they had arrived.</p><p>That this almost definitely wasn’t going to go her way.</p><p>“Ms. Swan?”</p><p>Immediately Emma was on her feet, bolting over to the desk as quickly as polite company would allow, Killian close behind, all traces of mirth evaporated from his expression. The man who had come to meet them wasn’t the same one who had led them up to the desk earlier, and a quick glance at his nametag told Emma they were speaking to a Mr. Heller. He resembled every bureaucrat that had ever taken residence in her imagination, thin in a sickly way and sort-of feeble-looking, but with a snide tug at the corner of his mouth which suggested he was not going to tell her what she wanted to hear, and he was enjoying the prospect immensely.</p><p>The sick feeling in her gut deepened.</p><p>“Thank you for waiting,” he said, in a bored tone, skimming the file he was holding. Emma tried to lift herself a little taller to take a look at it, but it was angled slightly away from her. “We were able to track down the license plate you requested in your application, but it was recalled eleven years ago. The vehicle it was registered to is no longer in use.”</p><p>It was easy to push back the first wave of disappointment – a setback, but not the most important thing. “But you know who it belonged to?”</p><p>Heller sighed heavily, and let the folder close. “I’m afraid the Washington State Licensing Department has denied your public records request regarding the owners of the plate.”</p><p>It was like a punch to the stomach. She could feel the warmth of Killian’s palm splayed against the small of her back, gently reassuring.</p><p>This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be another dead end.</p><p>“On what grounds?” he was asking, and she felt a rush of gratitude for him as she hadn’t quite been able to form her mouth around the words.</p><p>“Not enough evidence,” Heller continued, in that same flat tone that was beginning to grate. “We reviewed the article you sent, about the circumstances of the abandoned child at the edge of the road. There isn’t a lot of information available regarding the incident, even at the county level.”</p><p>“Well, it happened,” Emma replied hotly. “It’s me. I was the kid.”</p><p>
  <em>Another banner year, right?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We’ve all got ghosts here.</em>
</p><p>Heller quirked an eyebrow. “Then the department offers their sympathies. But there is no reason to suggest the plate you requested belonged to the vehicle involved.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Maine is a long way from Seattle.”</p><p>But she had <em>seen</em> it.</p><p>She had experienced the moment that changed the course of her life hundreds, thousands of times at the behest of a malevolent demon, while to the rest of the world she had been missing for five years. Even before that, the very fact of her being abandoned on the side of the road as a baby had cast its shadow over her entire life. Achieving any measure of answers about it had been unobtainable. She had made her peace with that a long time ago.</p><p>But then she became trapped in Brooke House.</p><p>And Brooke House had given her a few more pieces of the puzzle.</p><p>It felt like a dream, now. Like the scatter of smoke, or déjà vu. Something she couldn’t really be sure had happened. She had spent five years of her life suspended in a place that showed only her regrets, her fears, her desperate desires; anything that would make her pray for deliverance. In the two years she had spent free of it all, her ability to conjure up and consult those visions waxed and waned. The images it had shown her sometimes dribbled back like the trickle of a raindrop down glass to her waiting, thirsty mouth, but nothing was ever enough. While that feeling, that <em>sensation</em> of being left again, and again, and again remained seared onto her mind forever, the actual, physical details of the day her parents abandoned her were scarce. The vision was difficult to bring into focus.</p><p>Two months ago, a nightmare had caught her so tightly that Killian hadn’t been able to wake her for six minutes. Just when he had been reaching for his phone in a panic to dial 911, she had burst free; gasping, aching – awake and alive. The details had been so vivid. Before her eyes, her parents abandoned her at the side of the freeway; only this time she had spotted and could recall the plate of the car that had left her.</p><p>They had packed everything they owned into Killian’s Chevelle and made for Seattle in a matter of days.</p><p>This couldn’t be the end of the road. Not after everything she had been through to get here. She <em>deserved</em> answers, damn it.</p><p>“That’s the thing about cars,” Emma replied coolly, “they drive. And if you’re abandoning a kid, you’re not likely to do it on your own doorstep, are you?”</p><p>Heller looked bored. “You’re welcome to make an appeal against the department’s decision, so long as you do so within four to six weeks.”</p><p>“But I <em>saw</em> – we have a witness!”</p><p>“A witness?” His tone was disbelieving, and he fixed her with a hard stare. “Why didn’t you say so before?” Emma opened her mouth, but Killian pinched the side of her waist sharply and she hesitated. When she didn’t immediately confirm her declaration, Heller’s eyebrows rose victoriously. “Would they be prepared to come down here and make a statement?”</p><p>“We can ask,” Killian replied smoothly, before she could say anything. He whipped a notepad and a pen from his pocket. “Is it the same address we submit the appeal to, or –?”</p><p>Emma fumed quietly at his side. She knew <em>why</em> he had cut her off, before she could dig herself into a hole that would ensure state officials labelled her as halfway to crazy town, but it was infuriating. She couldn’t very well say their witness was <em>her</em> and the visions a haunted house halfway across the country had given her – a house which they had no physical evidence even existed, as it had since disappeared.</p><p>Silently, she smouldered.</p><p>Killian reached absently for her hand. She tugged it out of his grip.</p><p>Heller and Killian confirmed the logistics of an appeal process, but before long they were being thanked dully for their time and invited to leave. Emma stayed quiet for their entire walk out of the building, and she could sense Killian intentionally kept some space between them to allow her to adequately process what had happened in there.</p><p>Nothing. <em>Nothing</em> was what had happened in there.</p><p>Emma could feel the tide of something tight at the top of her stomach, like her insides were cramping. It was how she felt when she woke, uncertain, in the middle of the night.</p><p>“We’ll find another way, Emma,” Killian spoke gently as they stepped out into the morning sunlight.</p><p>Emma waved a dismissive hand and tried to focus her gaze on the particulars of the street. The chequered red, blue and silver line of cars parked along the sidewalk, the scent of wet asphalt and the hum of traffic whizzing by. They were far from a forest here – but she could <em>feel</em> the quiet whisper of the trees against her skin.</p><p>“I know, I know, I just –” She curled her toes in her boots, felt the stiff concrete beneath her feet. “I’m – tired of hitting brick walls.”</p><p>“We’ve got a little cash in the bank,” Killian pointed out, “maybe for the appeal we could hire a solicitor, just see if there’s anything else we can do to help our case.”</p><p>He was frowning at the note he had scribbled down during their conversation with Heller, his mind already four or five steps further ahead, and Emma felt a rush of affection for him. For his solidness and his patience. His tenacity was well documented, he had spent five years searching for answers about Brooke House and had never once given up on the idea that he would find them, and her along with them – even now he refused to let any speedbumps hamper their progress. It was so easy for her to get struck down by the first sign of resistance, but Killian persisted in a way she could only ever hope of emulating.</p><p>Nothing in the street felt tangible beside the resilience and vibrance of Killian Jones. Sometimes it felt like he was the only real thing she had found outside of Brooke House.</p><p>Like dust, the cars and the concrete and the chorus of the Seattle summer drifted away.</p><p>She reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly, praying for an anchor.</p><p>“How are you always so optimistic?”</p><p>“Because I know what you’re capable of,” he replied easily, although it felt like he was speaking to her from a great distance. Emma fought to inhabit this moment. “And I’ve yet to see you fail.”</p><p>Killian was smiling, which had always done its best to keep monsters at bay.</p><p>In a blur the noises returned, like a radio slowly tuning into focus.</p><p>“Emma?” he queried softly, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Are you still with me?”</p><p>The wet splatters of rain against the yearning canopy receded as it stretched for the sky.</p><p>Down the street a car horn blared, and she let it shake her firmly back into the present.</p><p>In Seattle, the sun was shining, and Killian was here. Standing so close to his warmth made her feel like a thief, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for him.</p><p>“Donuts,” she managed, nodding firmly. “I need a whole lot of donuts.”</p><p>He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “You read my mind.”</p><p>-/-</p><p>Killian railed against the idea of calling Elsa’s home a <em>house</em>.</p><p>It was a huge, sprawling behemoth of a structure, with vast corridors that led nowhere and innumerable superfluous rooms that all looked identical, with walls scaled by books and furniture shrouded in neat, ivory sheeting to protect them from dust and age. More than once he had found himself completely and utterly lost while attempting to find the bathroom, which he was convinced changed locations every time he visited it, and that wasn’t even mentioning the size of the grounds which circled the outside of the house.</p><p>Embedded deep within the winding roads of West Bellevue, he was grateful for the opportunity to interact with something a little less urban than the busy street he and Emma had rented their flat on, and Elsa had opened up her home to all assortments of waifs and strays long before he had ever come on the scene. Truthfully, it was sheer coincidence that they had even met, crossing paths in downtown Seattle late one night – but then, he didn’t believe in coincidences anymore. He had been searching for something more, and she had been offering something for him to find. The rest was inevitable.</p><p>
  <em>Clear night, isn’t it?</em>
</p><p>The room in which he spent the most time was the large dining room – the long table that would ordinarily occupy its centre was, as ever, pushed to the side against one wall and loaded with edible treats already half depleted, clearing the way for Elsa’s guests to arrange themselves on the floor in any number of styles depending on what the evening requested of them. The windows always remained open, so the room was immersed in the earthy scent of the outside, of wet moss and woodsmoke and pine, and the rain from the night before somehow made everything so much more pervasive.</p><p>Aurora stood in the centre of the room with her eyes closed, her hands held palm up with a pinecone resting atop them, while the rest of Elsa’s guests sat spread out across the room with their palms turned to the ceiling, mimicking the same position.</p><p>Killian sat at the edge of the room, notebook resting open in his lap, and observed.</p><p>Elsa stood, made her way over to Aurora, and placed her hands over the other woman’s.</p><p>“Child of earth, wind, fire and sea,” she spoke clearly out into the silent room. “We welcome you into our lives, into our homes, and into the waiting embrace of this powerful, caring woman. Think fondly on her, and choose her, as we have, to be part of your family.”</p><p>As Aurora opened her eyes, Anna stepped forward holding a candle in one hand and a ceramic bowl scattered with herbs in the other.</p><p>“Light it,” Elsa encouraged her, and Aurora held the pinecone over the candle until it caught.</p><p>The flame grew rapidly, Killian remembered reading somewhere that it had to do with the natural resins so near to the surface in pinecones, and soon Aurora dropped it into the bowl. Once there, the contents of the bowl started to gently smoulder and the scent of sweetgrass and sage began to float out into the air.</p><p>Killian took a deep breath. Let it wash over him for a few quiet, tender moments.</p><p>He wasn’t sure why, but he always felt closest to Liam here.</p><p>Aurora was smiling, and Elsa grinned back.</p><p>“Blessed be,” she said warmly. “And good luck!”</p><p>The group echoed a fractured but delighted <em>blessed be</em>, in response, before breaking out into a smattering of claps and spirited cheers. A few jumped to their feet to envelope Aurora in a loving, haphazard embrace.</p><p>No, <em>house</em> didn’t really cover the breadth of what Elsa’s home had become to this community, or the reality of what Killian had found there.  </p><p>This was a covenstead.</p><p>It wasn’t the first coven Killian had ever encountered – his first had been in Pennsylvania a number of years ago, but they had been intensely private and suspicious of strangers, and their association had not extended more than a few weeks. Long before now it had become his habit to deliberately seek out suggestions of the world that existed beyond what they could see. It had started because of Brooke House, because of the mistakes they had made when they were seventeen and naïve and frightened; after Emma had disappeared, Killian had searched for answers anywhere he could. He had five years to cross the globe, to pursue every lead and overturn every stone that might hint at something <em>more</em>, with varying levels of success.</p><p>Now, Killian had spent so long searching that he wasn’t sure he remembered how to be anything else. Getting Emma back, rather than being the end of his fascination with the otherworldly, had only fuelled it. There were still so many questions he didn’t have answers to, with Liam being chief among them. His brother had been involved in all this, had <em>known</em> about this barely perceivable double life that some among them were living, but Killian still had no idea about the how, or the why.</p><p>Emma was his life now. Everything he had ever wanted. For so long, his sole focus had been in making <em>this</em> world as right for her as possible, in giving her the tools with which she could build her new reality and hoping desperately that she still wanted him in it; while privately wrestling with that disquieting sensation that accompanied stepping <em>away</em> from the bizarre and the unexplained for the first time in a long while.</p><p>It was difficult, he had realised, to come to terms with the fact that everything you wanted wouldn’t <em>stay</em> everything you needed for the rest of your life.</p><p>And Killian needed <em>something</em>.</p><p>On their third night in Seattle, he had met Elsa. The very same night he had first had the dream about the boy and the creek and the dagger.</p><p>He didn’t believe in coincidences anymore.</p><p>Soon after Elsa wrapped up the ceremony, the group began to disperse, some aiming for a few treats to take for the road while others went to collect coats and bags from the hall. For his part, Killian took more care than necessary slipping his notebook back into his already overpacked bag and began shrugging on his jacket. The ending of these meetings always left him feeling oddly bereft, like although every week he walked in with no idea what he would find, somehow his expectations were never met. Or perhaps it was the realisation that always came when he watched the members of the coven at its conclusion, mingling and trading smiles and stories about the week that had just passed.</p><p>He wasn’t one of them. They were all kind enough, and they liked him, but he wasn’t part of them. They wondered why he was there as much as he did.</p><p>Watching them, his heart throbbed for the one place that had always been home; for that warm, golden light, for Regina’s lasagne and David’s terrible jokes and Mary Margaret’s helpful reminders to enjoy happily ever after. His chest hurt for the wanting of it.</p><p>The clerk at the DMV the day before had been right: Maine was a long way from Seattle.</p><p>He turned to leave.</p><p>“Killian, hi there.” It was Elsa, calling him back, and he fixed on a cheerful smile as he pivoted on the spot to face her. “I hope today wasn’t too women-centric for you.”</p><p>Aurora was trying for a baby with her husband; as a result, they had focused the evening on fertility. The lighting of the pinecone was a ritual from Elsa’s book of shadows, and had followed a relaxing evening spent sharing poetry and prayers and best wishes about family.</p><p>(At the very least, that probably explained why he was feeling so homesick.)</p><p>“Not at all,” he assured her, not least because he didn’t feel fertility was an exclusively <em>female</em> pursuit. There were plenty of men there tonight. “It’s a pleasure to observe. Thank you again for inviting me into your home.”</p><p>“Anyone is welcome here, there’s no need to thank me.”</p><p>He was reminded, again, of how different Elsa’s coven were to the one in Pennsylvania; Elsa made a point of opening up the covenstead to anyone at any time, not just during their meetings. It was Elsa’s home, but it was also effectively a refuge or meeting place for any of its members whenever they needed it. The grounds in particular were always accessible, and something Killian himself had taken advantage of more than once.</p><p>Especially when he wanted to – well. Dip his toe into something Emma would never approve of. The covenstead felt like a safer place to explore those private desires.</p><p><em>If he wanted to go deeper, he had to let himself fall</em>.</p><p>“You know,” Elsa was saying “if you would like to participate rather than just observe, we’d be happy to invite you to join us.”</p><p>For a moment he could see it; himself, sat on cushions with the rest of the group, palms up and eyes closed and waiting for wonders to begin again.</p><p>The image immediately fell apart as visions began to swim of a pentagram penned in black marker, scattered salt and a dagger rising above the swell of a storm.</p><p><em>This was the bargain</em>.</p><p>“Oh,” Killian let out uneasily, trying to find the best way to refuse without sounding impolite. “No, that’s alright. Really.” Elsa looked a little disappointed, and he hurried to reassure her. “I’ve… had some experience with the miraculous. It didn’t exactly go well.”</p><p>
  <em>Killian – Killian, don’t –!</em>
</p><p>A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him.</p><p>“I wouldn’t say what we do here is miraculous,” Elsa replied, but he could see she was quietly pleased by the comparison. Awkwardness settled like dust between them, neither considering the conversation finished, but before they could continue a few people cut between them on their way out of the dining room and into the hall. They called out their goodbyes to Elsa as they passed, and she returned them warmly. Killian lingered until they were finished, fiddling with the strap on his bag.</p><p>Once they were gone, she took a step towards him.</p><p>“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”</p><p>Killian shrugged. “By all means.”</p><p>“Why is it that you come to our meetings?” she clasped her hands in front of her, in a gesture Killian couldn’t help but interpret as deliberately nonthreatening. “And if you say Anna’s fruit loaf I <em>might</em> believe you, but I don’t really think that’s what it is.”</p><p>The question <em>felt</em> like it should be impolite, loaded with a query that went beyond their unspoken arrangement; that he could come, and he could watch, and she, like the rest of the group, would leave him be – but he was uninjured by her curiosity. Curiosity was, after all, what had brought him there.</p><p>So he surprised himself by being honest.</p><p>“For… proof, I guess?” he lifted his shoulders in an uncertain shrug. “That the world is still – strange?” The way Elsa watched him, almost waiting for him to continue, made that answer feel inadequate. He cleared his throat and searched for more to offer. “I actually lost my brother, a long time ago, now – and I still don’t fully understand why. And my partner, she…”</p><p><em>So good of you to finally come and see me</em>.</p><p>“She went through something I can’t even begin to comprehend. But she doesn’t like to talk about it.”</p><p>Elsa nodded slowly. “Sometimes what we don’t say speaks more for what troubles us.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Killian agreed, feeling oddly liberated by the opportunity to confide in someone. All he could think of was Emma in the dead of night, clenched tightly in their bed, her arms and knees curled against her chest as she fought darkness only she could see. “Yeah, it does.”</p><p>“Perhaps she’d like to come along to a meeting?” Elsa suggested. “There’s no obligation to partake. She could observe, as you do.”</p><p>“Oh, no. No. She hates all this stuff.”</p><p>Emma had already made clear her opinion on the covenstead in Bellevue, she was <em>not </em>interested; and he felt compelled to apologise on her behalf, seeing as they were all perfectly good people who had done nothing to offend her.</p><p>“It’s just — that <em>something</em>, I mentioned,” he offered. “Thank you, though. I appreciate it.”</p><p>“Well,” Elsa spread her hands. It was neither here nor there to her, he was sure. She couldn’t offer help to someone who didn’t want to receive it. “Have a good week, Killian. Will we be seeing you at our Litha celebration?”</p><p>Litha, Killian had learnt, was the wicca celebration of Midsummer, which took place on the summer solstice at the end of June. It traditionally heralded the beginning of summer, with its focus on fertility and the championing of light over darkness manifesting in the longest day of the year. The coven had planned an evening full of festivities including a large bonfire, an almost drastic amount of food and a lot of promised general merriment. Elsa had said last year two among their number had decided to spontaneously marry during the festival; in their eyes, the perfect way to celebrate new life and regeneration.</p><p>It sounded like a lot of fun. In the bleak, uninspiring, greyscape that Seattle had become to him in the last two months, it was a breath of life and the outdoors that he would be grateful for.</p><p>But he wasn’t really sure if he should. Especially with – well. With Emma.</p><p>“Sure,” he said, just to be polite. “If I can get away. That would be nice.”</p><p>He meant it. Elsa smiled understandingly, as if she knew he had no clear intention of attending but would let him maintain the charade for the sake of pleasant company – she was kind, and she didn’t really know him, but she had still invited him into her home without a single caveat. The coven respected her. Killian would like nothing more than to introduce her to Emma; he was sure whatever she refused to talk to him about she could bring before the other woman without fear of shame or regret, or whatever else she must think would come from Killian that prevented her from being honest.</p><p>Not that he was being entirely honest with her, either; she knew he came to the covenstead more often than their weekly meetings, but she didn’t know what he had been trying to do there. She <em>couldn’t</em> know. It was better she focused on the future, on the path ahead, on the fact that she was free, now, from the nightmare behind them.</p><p>It was lonely, he had come to realise, being the only one with unfinished business.</p><p>
  <em>Clear night, isn’t it?</em>
</p><p>“Elsa, wait,” he said, before he could think better of it. A jolt of nervous energy ran through him, his feet squaring imperceptibly on the laminate floor beneath him as if they were ready to <em>run</em>, but he forced himself to stay where he was. “Actually, I’ve… for the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to scry.”</p><p>Elsa’s eyebrows shot upwards.</p><p>He could understand her surprise, given he had shown no interest in participating in any of the wicca crafts since he had started coming to the Bellevue covenstead. Scrying was something he had only really read about, but never seen performed; it was the practice of, at its core, looking into a suitable medium in the hope of detecting significant messages of visions. While the most notorious method of which remained fortunes told over crystal balls, the history of the craft extended far beyond recent iterations of neopaganism. Cultures as far back as ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had practiced scrying by gazing into stone dishes filled with palm oil.</p><p>Killian had never really bought into it – but its existence as a medium through which he might gain some insight had been too tempting not to at least attempt, and the results were, well. Inconclusive.  </p><p>He stumbled over himself to continue. “I usually try at night, and mostly with rainwater, as I’ve heard that’s more potent? But I’ve also tried with tap water, and mirrors, too. But I’m finding it difficult to find direction.” He shrugged helplessly; his mouth felt bone dry. “It’s like staring out into silt.”</p><p>“Scrying is a challenging craft,” Elsa confirmed. “What is it you’re trying to see?”</p><p>He hesitated. Not just because he was reluctant to confirm the details for fear of sounding – well. Halfway to crazy town, as Emma would put it, but it was also this: he didn’t want Elsa to be part of it. Any of it. If he could protect one more person from the demons in his past, he would prefer to do so.</p><p>“I’ve… been having this dream,” he answered carefully. “A nightmare, really. It makes me worry someone might be in trouble because of something I didn’t finish.”</p><p><em>Come. Listen</em>.</p><p>The quiet truth knocked gently. They had been naïve to assume it was over.</p><p>Elsa hummed thoughtfully. “Often, dreams are just manifestations of our anxieties –”</p><p>“This is different,” he said firmly. “I can feel it.”</p><p>Killian didn’t sleep the way Emma slept, treading that breathless line between the waking world and the rest, fumbling in those in-between spaces, sometimes needing help discerning where the truest threads of herself should lie. They had developed a number of strategies for her, routines to perform while waking to know she was no longer asleep; listing the objects she could see and smell and taste as chief among them. Anything to help her cling to the world above and pull her out.</p><p>Killian did not sleep that way. The delineation for him was clear.</p><p>Which was how he<em> knew</em> this was more than just a nightmare.</p><p>Elsa seemed to take his confidence at his word, and instead turned her attention back to the wider room.</p><p>“Tink, would you come over here?”</p><p>Tink was not her name, but nobody ever called her anything else, so Tink was what Killian had come to know her by. Her features were sharp, her wit just as cutting, and she had made a point of behaving as indifferently to him as possible in a way he found both frustrating and a little refreshing – somebody else acting like he didn’t belong there helped remind him he was separate, he was apart from all this. Currently, she stood looking exceptionally guilty by the dining table, three small cupcakes placed precariously on top of each other and clearly about to be tucked away in some tupperware for her return journey. Killian didn’t blame her. The lemon cakes were always <em>especially</em> divine.</p><p>“Tink is our resident expert on divining arts,” Elsa informed him after spotting his rather put out expression. In a few moments, Tink had joined them. “Killian has been trying to scry but hasn’t had a lot of luck.”</p><p>Tink wrinkled her nose. “Nasty business, scrying. Wouldn’t bother.”</p><p>“I’ve been having this dream I’m trying to –”</p><p>“Oh, boy. It’s amateur hour. Trouble with dreams, go see an oneiromancer. Or a therapist.”</p><p>Killian bit back a retort; he was somewhat regretting the decision to come clean already.</p><p>“Killian believes this is <em>more</em> than a dream,” Elsa spoke quietly, but firmly, “and it’s not our business to interpret another’s instincts. We were hoping you could provide some insight.”</p><p>When Tink turned her shrewd eyes onto him, he merely lifted a shoulder in a helpless gesture. “You said it,” he pointed at himself, “amateur hour.”</p><p>Tink looked immensely reluctant, but as her gaze flickered between Elsa’s imploring request and Killian’s discomfort, she finally heaved a defeated sigh.</p><p>“Agh, shit.”</p><p>She took a bite out of a lemon cake.</p><p>Through chews, she carried on.</p><p>“Catch me up. What’ve you tried so far?”</p><p>-/-</p><p>The quiet <em>blip</em> of a notification turned Emma’s attention away from the window and back to her laptop. She smirked triumphantly – finally some good news.</p><p>“There you are,” she muttered, “sneaky bastard.”</p><p>She and Killian had been tracking down the same skip for a few days – so far none of their usual tactics could draw him out, but his credit card had just been used at a convenience store around the corner from his previous place of employment. The first time she had gone to that office she’d had a feeling everybody was behaving just a <em>little</em> shady. Now she knew she was right to be suspicious and resolved to pay them another visit in the morning, provided Killian was alright with it.</p><p>Well, she corrected, only if she decided to give Killian a say. Emma’s gaze skimmed the empty flat. If he wanted to spend the night messing around with delusional, self-proclaimed <em>witches,</em> then she got to make the work decisions by herself.</p><p>She gritted her teeth at the thought of the house in Bellevue Killian liked to retreat to these days; why couldn’t he have joined a local rec team or found some obnoxious new drinking buddies like a<em> normal</em> guy? The group at Bellevue were all just a bunch of tree-huggers, even worse than Regina. Emma knew what real magic was. And it wasn’t dancing around a field wearing flower crowns or mumbling limericks over a cauldron.</p><p>Emma quickly jotted down the address and the details regarding the skip’s purchase. It usually helped to be able to throw everything in her arsenal at getting past the front desk of any office. Bail bonds was a career she and Killian had fallen into almost accidentally – it suited the nomadic lifestyle they preferred, and blended Emma’s instincts for catching someone in a lie and Killian’s propensity towards investigation quite well. It just <em>worked</em>. And they needed some way to get food on the table.</p><p>David had offered them work at the veterinary shelter more times than she could count, but she was sure that had a lot more to do with wanting them to stay back home in Storybrooke than anything else. But Storybrooke couldn’t be for them what it was to him and Mary Margaret, and Regina; not anymore. There were too many splintered memories. Not to mention half the town still thought Killian had kidnapped her and kept her in a cave somewhere for five years. The lines had to be carefully drawn.</p><p>The notes for their appeal were sat in a haphazard clump behind the laptop, and the stack looked exactly how Emma felt about it; worn, sad, and a little flustered. It had only been a few days, but something about the disappointment at the DMV left her feeling wrecked and restless all it once. It didn’t feel <em>over</em>, but whenever she thought about burying herself back in the endless bureaucratic process all she wanted to do was hit the pavement and not stop running until she fell off the corner of the map. She wanted to be outside. Balmy air drifted in through the open window, coloured by the frustrated yelps and the gentle roar of cars in the busy evening.</p><p>She paused, listening for the familiar growl of Killian’s Chevelle. Nothing.</p><p>With a jolt, she realised her pen was still in her hand and had been working idly against the paper. She peered over at the notepad, hoping she hadn’t doodled over her notes about the credit card – and nearly knocked over the laptop as she jerked backwards.</p><p>Scribbled over every inch of the page, completely obscuring anything underneath it, she had written her name. Over and over.</p><p>In a twisted, medieval cursive she had only ever seen in one other place.</p><p>
  <em>Emma Swan Emma Swan Emma Swan Emma </em>
</p><p>The dagger swam into focus, and Emma resisted the urge to retch, clutching tightly at the desk in front of her with her left hand. Her right lay motionless across its surface, a foreign object to her now, a traitor which had scrawled out the pall that nestled around her shoulders and given it physical form. It was disquieting enough to see it there, a restless dream broken out, but only more disturbing to not remember having put it there.</p><p>She stood abruptly. Tore the page free, scrunched it up with that now untrustworthy hand, and dropped it down onto the floor.</p><p>Leaving the laptop open, she stalked out of the bedroom and across the hall to their tiny kitchen, determined to regain some control over the course of the evening, constantly clenching and unclenching her hand into a fist at her side. The kitchen was little more than two counters facing each other atop a strip of gaudy orange tiles with barely enough space for one person to pass by another, but they managed. They had never needed a lot of space, and their budget hadn’t been able to stretch particularly far. If they hadn’t needed a permanent address in order to submit the public records request, she probably would have made a case for sleeping in the Chevelle somewhere once they made it to the city.</p><p>Still, Killian had pointed out there was something nice about having a home base that wasn’t just the backseat of a car, and his suggestive glances at the bed when the realtor had taken them round had not gone unnoticed. Or unappreciated.</p><p>It was just – right <em>then</em>, especially without him in it, she didn’t want it. The lack of furniture, of personal affects, the rumpled sheets and the cracked plaster walls made it a gaping hole of something desolate and harsh. The jaws of something wanting in the shape of four walls and a door with a barely functional lock. She longed for the Chevelle and the torn leather seats, for something wild and alive.</p><p>At night Seattle burnt, and Emma yearned for home.</p><p>Not to mention it rained <em>all the fucking time</em>.</p><p>The door to the flat opened and closed, and Emma called out a greeting as she poured herself a glass of water. Killian didn’t reply. Assuming he had his headphones on, Emma allowed herself a few moments to breathe. She’d tell him about the credit card alert, let him know she was going by the skip’s office again in the morning and he could come along if he wanted, but she probably wouldn’t need the backup. Cornering a skip somewhere surrounded by friends and colleagues usually made them more amenable to coming quietly. Then she would ask as politely as she could manage about his evening and try not look too sour if he used the word <em>covenstead</em> again, instead of <em>big fucking house</em>.</p><p>Emma emerged from the kitchen, but he wasn’t setting his bag down in the sitting room like she was expecting him to be. Frowning, Emma re-entered the bedroom, but he was nowhere to be seen.</p><p>Her right hand twitched.</p><p>It felt numb, like she had been holding it in cold water for a few minutes. She could barely feel her other hand when she brushed her palms together, just the whisper of a touch instead of skin.</p><p>Her phone buzzed with an incoming text from Killian.</p><p>
  <em>Leaving now – should be 30mins. Stopping for snacks. Want anything?</em>
</p><p>Behind her, the door into the kitchen creaked, and the tap started to run.</p><p>Her mind rang with the dull truth slowly, like a bell tolling at dusk.</p><p>Someone had turned the tap on.</p><p>Killian wasn’t home.</p><p>Someone had turned the tap on.</p><p>Killian wasn’t home.</p><p>Her heart stuttered against her ribcage.</p><p>Immediately searching for anything she could use as a weapon, Emma darted back over to her desk to reach for one of the hardback file folders they used for work, but as she leant across to reach for it she froze.</p><p>Her laptop had been closed, and on top of it placed a clumsily straightened, crumpled bit of paper.</p><p>Her mouth went dry at its familiar script.</p><p>
  <em>Emma Swan Emma Swan Emma Swan Emma Swan Emma</em>
</p><p>Still through the doorway came the splurge from the rapidly filling kitchen sink, and Emma began to panic. She couldn’t go out there. Not now. Not now she couldn’t <em>know</em>, couldn’t be sure if there was anyone there to find or if she had unknowingly slipped back into sleep and this was just another spill. Her feet were frozen, dug in like anxious roots into earth, while her attention remained fixed on the hallway for every single sound or breath of movement.  </p><p>As quietly as she could, Emma closed the door to the bedroom. For good measure, she grabbed the desk chair and hooked it under the handle so it couldn’t turn, the noise masked by the water as it began to sluice over the side of the sink and splatter onto the floor of the kitchen.</p><p>Then she waited.</p><p>
  <em>Was she dreaming?</em>
</p><p>It didn’t feel like a dream – but then, they never did. Her pulse raced, her skin felt cold even though her senses were telling her the flat was warm, hot, but she daren’t start mumbling aloud the objects she could discern as being real just in case it heard her. <em>It</em>. Already something had taken shape in her mind.</p><p>It liked to stop by, every now and then, just so she didn’t forget.</p><p>It wasn’t long before the noises grew louder. With the steady stream of water came the slap of footsteps through the puddle, of the flat soles of smart shoes pacing restlessly back and forth across her kitchen, the <em>smack</em> of cupboards being flung open and slammed shut again.</p><p><em>Not here</em>, she thought, desperately, <em>not when I’m alone</em>.</p><p>Then Killian called her.</p><p>The sudden loud buzzing surprised her, and the phone slipped out of her grasp and onto the carpet below. Dropping to her knees and scrambling to reject the call, she split her attention between her frantic efforts and the blocked door, hoping against hope that it hadn’t heard, that it <em>wouldn’t</em> –</p><p>The door handle squeaked, stopping short when it was met with resistance from the chair.</p><p>When she was seven, there had been a month or so she had avoided being alone in her bedroom as often as possible. <em>Not</em>, she had insisted to Archie, <em>because she was scared</em>, but of course, really she had been terrified. It was a new room, colder, bigger, and the first one she hadn’t shared for as long as she could remember. For so long, all she could imagine was that one day the door would lock with her inside it, and nobody would ever come back for her or care at all that she was alone in there.</p><p>After weeks of creative avoidance strategies, Archie had finally wheedled the truth out of her, and had removed the lock the very next day. Then they had spent time drawing maps of the group home together, doodling creative means for her escape from that room until she was convinced that even if the door locked, it would be pretty easy to build a hang glider out of a kite and make a break for it through the window.</p><p>
  <em>Nobody can control this door except you, Emma.</em>
</p><p>Only these days, she had built the lock herself. She checked a hundred times a day that it was still secure. She buried herself behind it and when the cracks had started to form, she had piled up bricks instead.</p><p>The handle creaked again.</p><p>A desperate, fearful sound ripped itself from somewhere deep inside her chest and she stumbled backwards, reaching for anything, wanting the maps, the exit strategies, everything she had burnt the day she decided it was more important to keep things <em>out</em> than avoid leaving herself trapped <em>in</em>.</p><p>The door to the bedroom rattled against its hinges.</p><p><em>Thump. </em>Again. <em>Thump</em>.</p><p>Her fumbling hands fell on the door to the closet, and she hauled it open and ducked inside before she could think twice. She was breathing hard, her chest ached with the force of it. It smelt of black leather and mildew inside, and once she pushed through coats and her back hit the wall, she slid down onto the floor.</p><p>Once inside, the noises stopped.</p><p>Just, stopped. Like she had stepped out of an airlock, and all she could hear now was the hard, accelerated huff of her own breathing.  </p><p>
  <em>Was it still out there?</em>
</p><p>Like she was seven again, she pulled her knees up to her chest. She told herself it was just like when she and Killian used to play sardines with the other kids at the group home; exploring dark, gaping crevices until they could melt into its very walls. She had been older, then. Escape was all rationalisation, she didn’t need the maps. Keeping herself hidden meant just shutting her eyes and forcing it all out of her mind until she made herself unreachable.</p><p>As long as she couldn’t be seen, she couldn’t be caught.</p><p>Something in her twinged, something that ached for wide, open streets and a crumbling clocktower, for long conversations over steaming coffee and the vermillion kiss of the New England fall. Seattle was just unrelenting, torrid heat. Noise and noise and noise and more ceaseless, callous noise. And Killian’s coats smelt like midsummer rain and spluttering exhaust fumes in heavy traffic.  </p><p>She couldn’t remember calling David, but she was glad when he answered.</p><p>“My new assistant is pteronophobic,” he sighed heavily, by way of greeting.</p><p>The words sounded like nonsense to her, but she couldn’t discern if that was because they <em>were</em>, or because she didn’t feel like she could trust her senses anymore.</p><p>“Terr— what?”</p><p>“Pteronophobic. She’s pteronophobic.”</p><p>Emma pressed herself as far back into the wall as she could go, curling tightly away from the door.  </p><p>She tried to focus on the call. “So… she’s a dinosaur?”</p><p>David snorted. “It’s a phobia of being tickled by feathers. Isn’t that ridiculous?” He clicked his tongue. “Actually, what’s ridiculous is that she <em>knew</em> this about herself, yet she applied for a job at a veterinary shelter.”</p><p>“Is this your way of telling me you’re the idiot that hired an assistant who’s scared of birds?”</p><p>“<em>Feathers</em>. And their proclivity for tickling.” She could hear him smiling down the phone, and already the pressure in her chest began to lessen. “Anyway, what’s up?”</p><p>Emma bit her lip. “Nothing, I just…” With a start, she realised the time and was amazed he had picked up at all. “Isn’t it nearly midnight over there?”</p><p>“You don’t call enough,” he reproached, but she could hear the tease in his voice. “This is like positive reinforcement.”</p><p>“How’s Ruth?”</p><p>There was a pause, a barely audible sigh. Gently, he repeated: “You don’t call enough.”</p><p>She could feel herself becoming more aware of herself, of her limbs tangled tightly at the bottom of the closet, of her hair sticking to the back of her neck, in a way that let her know that if she had drifted, she was returning now. It was nearly over.</p><p>“She misses you,” David added, “that’s all. So do we.”</p><p>“Me too,” Emma frowned, trying to remember the last time she had called anybody from Storybrooke. She had called after they got to Seattle, hadn’t she? How – how long ago was that? “Sorry.”</p><p>David made a dismissive noise, and as he always did, he forgave her.</p><p>“Everything good with Killian?”</p><p>Something in her chest squeezed as she remembered the call she had rejected.</p><p>“It’s fine,” she said, and tried to sound convincing, “I’m fine.” He didn’t have to know she was talking to him from the floor of a closet. “I just… wanted to hear your voice.”</p><p>For a little while, David said nothing. It was nice to just hear him breathe.</p><p>“Are you sure you’re okay?”</p><p>Emma smiled weakly, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Y’know, if it’s just that you’re afraid you’ll miss Seattle, I could set up the hose at the end of Mom’s porch and you’re welcome to stand under it whenever.”</p><p>“Wow, how generous,” she snorted. “It’s really more of a near constant <em>moistness</em> than always rain, though.”</p><p>“Or we could buy you a Subaru? You could sit in it and vape a Starbucks, or whatever it is you do there.”</p><p>“I honestly don’t know what to say to that.”</p><p>For a few moments they just laughed, until they petered back out into quiet. Emma thought about Killian returning home soon, and the fact that she really didn’t want him to find her in the closet.</p><p>“Listen, um… I have to go. I’ll call more,” she promised.</p><p>David hummed on the other end of the line. “I hope you do.”</p><p>She felt calmer now as she disconnected the call, her heartbeat still clear in her ears but a steady pound, almost reassuring, not racing away without her. With fresher eyes, she nudged open the door to the closet and edged her way out slowly. The bedroom door was still closed, the desk chair propped up against it, but the only sound she could hear was the humming of her laptop on standby and the noise drifting up from the street through the open window.</p><p>Carefully, she removed the chair and shut the window. Then she sunk down into bed, into the quiet, and buried herself beneath the covers. She felt like she had run a marathon, her muscles ached in the aftermath of pumped adrenaline, and all her body wanted to do was rest.</p><p>She didn’t realise until Killian got home, but she had forgotten about the flooded kitchen. She heard him pause in the hallway, then the patter of his boots on the sodden tiles. Once realisation struck, her entire body burned when she wondered what he must be thinking, thinking of <em>her</em>, her skin hot with humiliation. But he didn’t comment on it, at least not that she could hear. Instead she heard him pulling out the mop and bucket and cleaning it up.</p><p>She wanted to join him, she just couldn’t muster the willpower.</p><p>A passing thought occurred to her then, the meekest of suggestions, now that rational thought had crept back in.</p><p>Had she just <em>left</em> the tap on?</p><p>After a few minutes she heard Killian enter the bedroom, but he didn’t switch on the light. Instead he slid into bed beside her, still clothed, and curled himself around her as tightly as he could manage. Something in her relaxed, as it always did, a muscle coming unclenched as she sank into the safety of his arms.</p><p>This, she knew. <em>This</em> was always real.</p><p>He kissed her shoulder, and he didn’t say a single word.</p><p>She loved him for it, and she hated him a little for it, too.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 2 - that featureless space</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Aaaand here is chapter two! Firstly I'd like to give MASSIVE thanks to HollyeLeigh (@hollyethecurious on tumblr) who has been kind enough to make the lovely art for this fic &lt;3 I'm so pleased with it! And secondly I'd like to say thanks so so much to everybody who picked up the first chapter, I'm so thrilled you're ready to hop back on board with me! </p>
<p>Warnings: Canonical character death and some certified Spooky Business™.</p>
<p>so here it is, I hope you enjoy - and let me know what you thought!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <strong>2. that featureless space</strong>
</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>The ground beneath him was moving. No, it was growling. Rumbling for more, then receding, hurtling forward and then retreating, leaving him a helpless passenger. It was a car. The old Mustang, in fact, he recognised the flowery smell of the vinyl seats that Liam had never been able to scrub out. The car window was a little too high for him to see properly out of, it was just a blur of colour whizzing by, and his hands had been folded neatly in his lap. His legs were small, just barely long enough to touch the bottom of the car, the jagged metal that grumbled underneath him.</p>
<p>This was the car that Liam had died in.</p>
<p>Killian wiped his eyes, groggy. He couldn’t remember getting in this car.</p>
<p>“Where are we going?” he asked the driver. His voice sounded high, and squeaky. And young.</p>
<p>The driver was Liam.</p>
<p>“Nowhere,” Liam said, then changed his mind. “Somewhere. Somewhere better.”</p>
<p>With great effort, Killian turned his neck to see if anyone was in the backseat. They were alone, but a large suitcase sat where a person should be.</p>
<p>“Where’s Dad?” he asked.</p>
<p>Liam kept his eyes on the road. Killian only noticed now because it seemed more deliberate than before.</p>
<p>“Dad isn’t coming.”</p>
<p>For some reason, this was surprising. Killian wanted to ask why, but Liam was shaking his head firmly.</p>
<p>“Go back to sleep, Killian.”</p>
<p>To his amazement, he did.</p>
<p>This time when he woke, he was outside. He knew this because he could feel the soft warmth of the sun on his skin, and nearby the sound of water rushing by drowned out the buzz of insects around him. It was bright, he had to shield his eyes and keep them narrowed until they adjusted, and he could finally take in his surroundings. He was sat on dry rock, a few metres away from the edge of a rushing stream, an everchanging palette of vivid sapphire and frothy pearl, and on the opposite bank a sparse array of thick trees stood swaying gently in the breeze.</p>
<p>On either side of the wide, open current, walls of rock rose up for hundreds of metres, and Killian realised he had been here before.</p>
<p>It was the memory of a memory, perhaps a recollection of something he had been told rather than something he had lived, but everything about this place was familiar, and bright, and achingly, desperately sad.</p>
<p>This was the creek that Liam had died in.</p>
<p>Then he saw the boy.</p>
<p>The boy was crouched down so near to the surface of the water that his gaze had easily skimmed over him the first time, huddled tightly on a rock near the centre of the current with his arm thrust into the water.</p>
<p>“No,” Killian said, before he even realised what was happening.</p>
<p>He stood. At his feet was a hastily rolled up jacket, which must belong to the boy.</p>
<p>The boy who was reaching for the dagger.</p>
<p>“Wait,” he called, desperately.</p>
<p> The boy ignored him, or he did not hear.</p>
<p>“<em>Stop!</em>”</p>
<p>Triumphantly, the boy pulled back with his prize.</p>
<p>In the sparkling sunlight, its shiny edge was unmistakable.</p>
<p>There was the dagger.</p>
<p><em>Come</em>.</p>
<p>“Put it back,” Killian hollered, his chest hurting from the force of his yell. “<em>Listen to me!</em>”</p>
<p>The boy looked up. Stared him straight in the eye.</p>
<p>“I am,” he said, “I’m listening.”</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”</p>
<p>Killian was sat with his legs folded underneath him on the floor of Elsa’s bedroom, warmly lit by an array of candles across every surface. Dim light streamed in through an open window, casting orange splotches onto the immaculate powder blue carpet. After their discussion with Tink, she had invited him back the following day for a private session with them both, an attempt at a more guided scry, and Killian had jumped at the invitation. Anything that might provide him with more concrete answers.</p>
<p>Emma had gone again to the office of the skip they were after; apparently his credit card had been used in a convenience store near to it the day before. Killian had wanted to go with her, but the lingering invitation from Elsa and Tink, combined with Emma’s <em>emphatic</em> insistence that she wouldn’t need help had left him at something of a loss.</p>
<p>Although he was sure her determination came from the same place that insisted his coming home and finding their kitchen flooded was nothing to be concerned about. She claimed she had just left the tap on, and had been meaning to clean it up before he got home but had fallen asleep before she had the chance.</p>
<p>She was awake when he got home, though. And when he’d called her earlier it had rung through to voicemail. He was concerned – that was easy enough to admit.</p>
<p>By the third time he had probed her about it, she had declared that she’d really <em>prefer</em> it if he didn’t come with her to the office the following day, and had shut down that line of questioning with perhaps more vigour than it required. Killian didn’t know what else to do.</p>
<p>They were supposed to be a team. If she was having trouble, she was supposed to <em>tell</em> him so they could solve it together. He knew she was holding something back, but if she refused to confide in him then he couldn’t exactly pull or pester the truth out of her, and he wouldn’t want to, anyway. Perhaps she was frustrated that she was still having setbacks like these; after her rescue from Brooke House they had been frequent, the nightmares near constant, and her sense of drifting from moment to moment was something they had discussed at great length together, developing coping mechanisms and strategies to help her get past it.</p>
<p>They had been a team. More than anything, Killian just wanted her to be alright. He had just hoped his days of needing to scale Emma’s walls had ended the day she told him she loved him.</p>
<p>Unless she didn’t. Love him anymore, that is.</p>
<p>Something squeezed tightly in his chest.</p>
<p>“At this point,” he cleared his throat, forcing his focus back to the other occupants of Elsa’s bedroom, “I’m ready to try anything.”</p>
<p>Tink was sat perched on the bed in her bare feet, her blonde hair tied up into a haphazard bun as she carefully emptied a large glass jar of water into a white ceramic bowl. The bowl, Killian presumed, he would be scrying out of. Elsa was stood preparing something at her desk on the other side of the room, and Killian could hear the sound of something bubbling. It reminded him distinctly of the living room back in Regina’s house, with the large desks and varied array of vials and candles resembling an incredibly ancient chemistry set, or a set perfect for the potions and brews she liked to assemble.</p>
<p>It had been a while since he’d spoken to Regina; he should make an effort to give her a call. It wasn’t as if she was likely to do the reverse.</p>
<p>Tink eyed him over her task as he fidgeted on the floor. “It would really help if you told us what this dream was about.”</p>
<p><em>I am. I’m listening</em>.</p>
<p>“It’s – it’s really better if I don’t.” The less they knew about the dagger, the better. He didn’t want anyone else exposed to its evil.</p>
<p>“Ooh, mysterious. Are you predicting a murder? Was some poor, desperate soul murdered before your very eyes?” she grinned. “Was it me?”</p>
<p>“Tink,” Elsa admonished from across the room, “please.”</p>
<p>Tink let out an exaggerated sigh, and sealed the glass bottle once the bowl was full. Carefully, so as not to spill any, she stood and set the bowl down in front of him. The water was clear, and smelled fresh. He couldn’t imagine seeing anything in it other than his own reflection.</p>
<p>“You were right about rainwater being generally more effective,” Tink began, folding her legs as she sat across from him. “Really, anything from nature is supposed to make scrying a little clearer. You’re lucky Elsa was happy to donate this to the cause.” She gestured to the bowl. “It’s water from a natural spring.”</p>
<p>“I collected it a few years ago in Oregon.”</p>
<p>Killian eyed the bowl warily. “Alright. Do I – just –?”</p>
<p>It felt bizarre to try and do with two people watching, in the middle of the afternoon. As if by casting light on the process it somehow took something out of it; getting his mind to that place where he really <em>believed</em> this would work would be a little more difficult, and in his experience, perception was reality when it came to flirting with the otherworldly. Not to mention his brushes with real magic had only ever occurred in the dead of night, in the middle of fall, and Elsa’s bedroom felt too neat, too warm, to be somewhere something close to miraculous could happen.</p>
<p>“Not without this,” Elsa informed him, finally revealing what she had been working on. In her hand she held a steaming mug of – well, he wasn’t exactly sure what, but its scent was distinctly herbal and earthy. Killian had a sneaking suspicion he was going to be made to drink it. “I’ll warn you, this isn’t going to taste good.”</p>
<p>Killian winced. “What’s in it?”</p>
<p>“Bitter grass.”</p>
<p>“It makes dreaming more vivid, or last longer,” Tink added. “I’ve never tried it myself, but apparently it can make scrying… well, <em>more</em>.”</p>
<p>“‘More’?” Killian carefully took the mug from Elsa, peering at it dubiously.</p>
<p>The hot liquid had settled on a murky acid colour and leaves were still floating aimlessly on its surface. It did not look in the least bit appetising.</p>
<p>Tink huffed, as if his attempt to quantify her deliberate vagueness offended her. “I don’t know, like you’re in the front seat rather than clinging to the rear bumper?”</p>
<p>Killian was beginning to question the wisdom in attempting something their so-called expert had purported never to have tried.</p>
<p>“Scrying is a mess,” she continued sharply. “I avoid it for this very reason. It’s like –” Tink hesitated, trying to find the right words. “It’s like walking into a CVS and trying to buy a hunk of plutonium. You’re <em>sort of</em> along the right lines, you’re in a store, and a store is where you buy things, but you’re so far out of your depth that all you can really do is cross your fingers and ask the universe, and hope someone answers back.”</p>
<p>Killian took a tentative sip of the tea, and immediately grimaced as the acrid mixture began to slip down his throat.</p>
<p>“You’re right, this is revolting.”</p>
<p>Elsa smiled sympathetically. “And it’s illegal in Louisiana, so that’s got to be a win for the rebellious teen in you, right?”</p>
<p>He forced himself to drink a little more. “I always preferred sneaking rum.” He paused, contemplating. “Any chance we could add rum to this?”</p>
<p>“Listen to me,” Tink snapped, and his gaze shot back to her. “Scrying is <em>dangerous</em>. You’re effectively setting your mind loose from your body. Do that for too long…”</p>
<p><em>If he wanted to go deeper, he had to let himself fall</em>.</p>
<p>“And I’ll be stuck in CVS forever?”</p>
<p>“Something like that, yeah.”</p>
<p>Killian thought of the sparkling summer day, of the boy, of another innocent life the dagger wanted to claim. It had already taken Liam, and left its mark on Emma forever.</p>
<p>Consider this him jumping in with both feet.</p>
<p><em>Fall away</em>.</p>
<p>He finished off the rest of his tea and returned the mug to Elsa.</p>
<p>“Are you sure you still want to do this?” she asked gently.</p>
<p>Killian nodded firmly, and pulled the bowl a little closer towards him.</p>
<p>Elsa laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t go too far. Let us help you back if you need it.”</p>
<p>He had no idea what that meant, but he thanked her all the same. They had already done so much for him.</p>
<p>Tink blew out the last few candles, the curl of smoke rising from them smelling faintly of rosemary; he had known an unlit candle’s purpose for years now in these sorts of rituals – to let energy out. It struck him only then that the very thing they were expecting to let out was <em>him</em>.</p>
<p>Killian turned his attention to the surface of the water, perfectly still in the bowl.</p>
<p>After he leaned closer, he could see the details of his face more clearly in his reflection. The dark lines under his eyes, the barely visible scar on his right cheek from when Regina had flung a pencil at him a little too hard in eighth grade. His eyes didn’t even look blue anymore, in his reflection they looked less somehow, washed, like a faded grey. As he stared, he became aware that something around him had changed – like a noise that had always existed in his periphery had suddenly dropped out, and now he wished he had been paying closer attention to discern what it was. The tea had settled warmly in his chest and he felt light, lighter than air, and tried to focus on that sensation.</p>
<p>Moments ago, he had felt that if he had reached out to either side of him, he would feel Elsa and Tink there. He was not sure he felt that way now. </p>
<p>His right hand twitched.</p>
<p>It was a foreign, surprising sensation, like someone else had reached through his shoulder all the way to his fingertips and jerked it without his permission. It begged for his attention but he tried not to let his mind wander beyond its purpose, and forced himself to keep looking at the surface of the water.</p>
<p>Or what had once been the surface of the water.</p>
<p>Ripples scattered across its edges, as if a sharp wind were blowing until it folded over itself, oozing, and his chest wanted to fall forward, forward, to topple over until he collapsed and could feel the sharp sting of ice cold water filling up his lungs. His chest felt tight. Hard. Like he had to force every breath through a sheet of glass until it reached him. He thought about Elsa, what Elsa had promised, to help him back if he went too far and he reached for her –</p>
<p>His hand fell through empty air.</p>
<p>The ground beneath him was moving. Growling, rumbling, hurtling forward; was he back in the car? Liam’s Mustang, like he had dreamt last night? Even as he thought it the colours materialised, but the vinyl of the seat felt searing hot beneath him and the cream was so bright, he had to blink his eyes against it. He wanted to turn and look at the driver. He wanted to turn and look at Liam. He would give anything to turn his head and be able to look at Liam one more time and for it to be real.</p>
<p>“Go back to sleep, Killian.”</p>
<p><em>Show me the boy</em>, he thought fiercely, <em>the boy at the creek with the dagger.</em></p>
<p>His chest tugged him toward the door of the car as he fumbled with his seatbelt, falling against it as the car started to speed up. With effort, he pulled the handle open and the door swung away from him, his grabbing onto the roof of the car the only thing that stopped him hurtling out of it and into the black.</p>
<p>
  <em>If he wanted to go deeper, he had to let himself fall. </em>
</p>
<p><em>So, </em>the outside beckoned, <em>fall</em>.</p>
<p>Killian let go.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Emma said, her cheeks flushed with glorious delight, “for always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”</p>
<p>Killian blinked. Granny’s Diner smelt like burnt cheese and vanilla cake and Emma’s arms were around his neck. The bus ticket sat on the table beside them.</p>
<p>“I know this part,” he said, feeling dazed. “This is the part where I kiss you.”</p>
<p>The corner of Emma’s lip curled unpleasantly.</p>
<p>“You had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>“I think you should do it.”</p>
<p>“Do what?”</p>
<p><em>Come back</em>, he breathed.</p>
<p>“Go and live with the Nolan’s.”</p>
<p>“Killian, come on.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Haunt me.</em>
</p>
<p>“I’ll be out after high school. What’s the point?”</p>
<p>Just as he reached for her, Emma dived into the ocean.</p>
<p>
  <em>Killian – Killian, don’t –! </em>
</p>
<p><em>I love you</em>, he shouted. She didn’t reply.</p>
<p>He jumped in after her.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>“Go back to sleep, Killian.”</p>
<p><em>Show me the boy</em>.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>Killian gasped as he broke free from the surface of the water, gulping in oxygen like a man starved. His limbs felt numb, only sluggishly responding to his demands as he struggled to stay afloat. His chest was tight, <em>freezing</em>, and as he spluttered he could feel fresh water pushing its way out from his throat. Was he drowning? This felt like what drowning should feel. like Water was everywhere; his nose, his eyes, and though he tried to wipe it away so he could see, he was doing so with a hand that was also soaked and made little difference against his blurring vision.</p>
<p>He had to get out. He had to find shore. Killian kicked his legs into action, pumping them through the black to try and propel him forward, push him toward <em>something</em>; everything around him felt so permeable, so susceptible to the slightest change in thought, and he tried to focus on the feel of the water around him. Water could be good. Water could take him to the creek.</p>
<p><em>The creek</em>, he insisted, bringing his arms in to give his strokes more momentum, <em>the dagger</em>.</p>
<p>His feet brushed what felt like the murky bottom of the pool, slick with seaweed and soft, and his toes scrabbled for purchase while his arms tried to aid in treading water – and that was when he saw him. A few metres in front, the boy fumbling for the dagger.</p>
<p>“Hey!” he hollered, but the noise was drowned out by the current flooding around him. Water flooded into his open mouth and he choked. “H—hold on!”</p>
<p>The boy was already scampering away, hopping from rock to rock with his prize hidden underneath his shirt. He was calling to someone Killian could not see on the opposite bank.</p>
<p>“<em>Just a minute, Dad!</em>”</p>
<p>Two firm hands reached underneath Killian’s arms and hauled him out of the water. He flopped down onto the bank, coughing and spluttering.</p>
<p>Gasping, shivering, he tried to focus on his would-be saviour.</p>
<p>It was his father.</p>
<p>It was impossible for Brennan Jones to be that tall, not while Killian was a man grown, but that was how he remembered him – broad shoulders, lined features, and an easy sort of smile when he wanted it.</p>
<p>He wasn’t smiling now.</p>
<p>“What have I said about staying in bed?”</p>
<p>Killian’s heart was galloping against his ribcage; he had done something he knew he could not take back, the oil had spilled and poison was beginning to blacken the depths of the ocean. Something white hot and fearful had ignited in his chest, Liam would know what to do, Liam would – <em>Liam would </em>–</p>
<p>“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”</p>
<p>His father’s arms thrust out in front of him – and although Killian hadn’t been touched, he felt himself flung backwards through the air.</p>
<p>
  <em>Why can’t you just do as you’re told?</em>
</p>
<p>There was nothing but empty space behind him.</p>
<p>He was falling, he was falling, he was falling.</p>
<p>His watch beeped: 2:17am. Right on time.</p>
<p>There was a searing pain in his right hand, but his scream was swallowed by the dark.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p><em>Go back to sleep, Killian</em>.</p>
<p>“Killian!”</p>
<p>He was lying on his back, staring at the intricate pattern of Elsa’s ceiling, and his right hand hurt like a <em>bitch</em>.</p>
<p>“Ah,” he hissed, wincing, instinctively lifting it to try and identify the cause. It was covered with blood. “<em>Ah</em> – the – <em>fuck</em>.”</p>
<p>“Sorry, sorry!” Someone was yelping in response, then something cold and wet was pressed against his hand as he tried to sit up.  “We didn’t know what else to do!”</p>
<p>He felt dizzy. The sight of blood didn’t help, and a wave of nausea surged within him.</p>
<p>“Oh god, he’s gonna – Elsa get the –”</p>
<p>Something plastic and cylindrical was thrust underneath his chin and he promptly vomited into it.</p>
<p>The whole room was spinning. He tried shutting his eyes but it only made it worse, the horizontal slamming into vertical behind his eyelids. Someone was attempting to rub soothing circles on his back and he tried to focus on that, while someone else kept a cold cloth pressed against his bleeding hand. Elsa and Tink. Right. Elsa and Tink. Slowly, so he didn’t aggravate his already deeply upset stomach, he tried to glance at the space around them.</p>
<p>The ceramic bowl of water had been overturned, and a visible wet patch surrounded it. Beside it, a large kitchen knife had been discarded, its sharp edge scarlet with blood that was now dribbling onto the otherwise pristine light blue carpet. <em>His</em> blood, he realised, dazedly drawing the connection between the knife and his bleeding hand.</p>
<p>“Did you – to me –?” he mumbled, wiping his sweaty forehead with his free hand.</p>
<p>“You gave us quite a fright,” Elsa replied. “Nothing we did could bring you out of it and you looked – well. Distressed.” Gingerly, she took the bin away from him and left the room to dispose of it.</p>
<p>“The worst,” he began, then coughed, “<em>worst</em> cup of tea ever.”</p>
<p>“I underestimated you,” Tink growled, as she tied the wet cloths ends around Killian’s palm with a show of force. “You really just jumped right in, huh? <em>This</em> is why I steer clear of this crap. It’s a fucking shitshow. You could have died and then, what, I’m explaining you wanted to stare at visions in a fruit bowl to your pretty girlfriend? No way. No fucking way.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else he could say.</p>
<p>“Don’t be sorry, be <em>smart</em>.”</p>
<p>“Here. Water,” Elsa returned with a glass, and Killian reached for it eagerly. His throat felt like something had crawled in there and died. “Feel any better?”</p>
<p>Killian nodded, and he meant it. He had never been so aware of his own limbs before, of the heaviness of his own arms and legs. It was like he’d been living without gravity and these were his first few moments back on Earth and feeling the weight of his cumbersome form.</p>
<p>Was this how Emma felt, he wondered, when she lingered in that featureless space between?</p>
<p>“So? What did you see?”</p>
<p>
  <em>Why can’t you just do as you’re told?</em>
</p>
<p>Killian tried to clear his throat, but something stuck tightly in it.</p>
<p>In a sea of opalescent and obscure images, that had felt very clear. It didn’t marry up to his memory in the same way the others did; he was certain he did not have any memories of Brennan Jones associated with such a moment, but it was just – it was so <em>vivid</em>.</p>
<p>“I don’t, uh,” he rubbed his right eye tiredly. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>In their line of work, there was nothing that irritated Emma more than wasted time. Wasted time meant loss of income, and the unreasonably elusive skip <em>August W. Booth</em> was getting on her last nerve. She had gone to his old office the day before, armed with the information regarding the credit card purchase, only to be turned away at the front desk with the claim the entire company staff were away on a corporate retreat. Her instincts had wanted to call bullshit, but a cursory glance of a few of their social media pages confirmed it. It didn’t matter if she was ninety nine percent certain her bail jumper was hiding out inside the office, if the actual employees weren’t there then she couldn’t exactly magic a reason to be admitted out of thin air.</p>
<p>Annoyingly, it meant they had to put it off for another day. This damn bail jumper was one slippery fucker, and the more time Emma had to waste rounding him up, the more irritated she got. Their time was their own in this profession, which most of the time was an advantage, but every second spent on the same guy was a second she couldn’t spend securing their next pay-check.</p>
<p>Killian had insisted on joining her this time, and she couldn’t think of any good reason for him not to. Her slip up with the tap in the kitchen had thankfully drifted into the near-past and there were no other demands on his time. Not to mention given how tricky this August W. Booth was proving to be, better they put their heads together and get it sorted out, pay-check <em>cashed,</em> as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Emma watched enviously as Killian slid the Chevelle smoothly into park at the side of the road – the old car was <em>never</em> that cooperative with her, spitting like a feral cat as she wrestled with the stick shift. The morning was dim and gloomy, the sky overhead a bruised and leaden grey slathering the streets with scattered showers at unpredictable intervals. Currently only one wiper was working, albeit lazily, succeeding in keeping only the driver’s side of the windshield clear while rain loped down in waves in front of Emma.</p>
<p>Through the passenger side door, she squinted out at the office block, the embossed directory helpfully just a few feet away from where they’d parked. <em>Gepetto’s – 6<sup>th</sup> Floor</em>.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Emma sighed, drumming her fingers on the passenger door. “The receptionist said by now they should all be back from their… I dunno, <em>business boy-scouting</em>, or whatever. You wait out here, I’ll go in and chat to the office manager, ask if she’s seen any funny business. Really hammer home the whole ‘<em>he’s a criminal</em>’ shtick. Throw out a few ‘<em>harboring a fugitive is a prosecutable offence</em>’, etcetera…” Emma turned to get Killian’s input, but he wasn’t looking at her. His hands were still resting on the bottom of the wheel, and he was staring out of the front windshield.</p>
<p>His eyes held the same vacant look she had been catching him with all morning, and every time she spotted it something inside her twisted unpleasantly. It felt like he <em>went</em> somewhere, and she wasn’t used to Killian checking out into places she couldn’t follow him.</p>
<p>“Hey.” She snapped her fingers next to his ear, startling him. “Paging Killian Jones.”</p>
<p>“What?” He straightened abruptly in his seat. “Oh. Yeah, I’ll QB from down here.” He made a show of peering past and her and toward the office block. It didn’t fool her. “See if he makes a run for it once his cage gets rattled.”</p>
<p>Emma watched him curiously, hoping for any sort of clue, but he didn’t meet her eye. He likely was trying to avoid what they both knew was her superpower, to spot a lie a thousand miles away; and immediately, unbidden, a wave of self-consciousness rose within her. He hadn’t really said anything about the flooding incident – but what if he <em>wanted</em> to? He’d been quiet since yesterday, so it wasn’t unreasonable to assume he had been mulling the whole situation over. It wasn’t paranoia when the logic was sound.</p>
<p>Maybe he was finally getting fed up of cleaning up after her messes.</p>
<p>With effort, she pushed the feeling down.</p>
<p>“You okay today?” Emma asked. “You’ve been spaced out all morning.”</p>
<p>Killian waved a hand, and smiled in a not-all-that-convincing manner. “I’m fine. Really.”</p>
<p>“No blood pacts with the Witches of West Bellevue on your mind?”</p>
<p>“Ha, ha, very funny,” Killian replied drily, smiling despite himself as he unconsciously picked at the bandage with his opposite hand. “I wish you wouldn’t call them that.” She knew he was intending to sound reproachful, but there was no heat behind it.</p>
<p>“I wish they wouldn’t send you home <em>bleeding</em>,” she smirked. Killian had come back to their flat last night sporting a rather nasty gash on his right palm – he had insisted it was his own fault, some incident with a bread knife, but Emma had enjoyed teasing him to no end about blood sacrifices and voodoo rituals.</p>
<p>“That was my fault,” Killian said absently, clearly not registering her jest. “And it was an accident.”</p>
<p>Emma arched an eyebrow, wondering which it was: his fault, or an accident.</p>
<p>“Hey.” She laid a hand on his arm to get his full attention, and he finally looked her in the eye. She wasn’t particularly enthused about hashing out the events of the other night, but if there was something genuinely bothering him then she wanted to know about it. “Is there something on your mind?”</p>
<p>Killian’s lips parted, as if debating whether to speak. “It’s… nothing important.” He shrugged, offering her a smile. “Really. I’m just a little too in my own head.”</p>
<p>Emma was far from convinced. “Well, I’m here if you want to talk about anything.”</p>
<p>This time when Killian smiled, he tilted his head and his eyes softened, as if he were looking at her for the first time that day. Even after all the years they had known each other, there was a thrill in being seen so gently. He leaned forward and she met him halfway, their lips meeting in a slow kiss.</p>
<p>After they parted, he let out a contented sigh as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.</p>
<p>“You’re my favourite, you know that, right?”</p>
<p>Emma grinned. “And I promise you’re a close second behind Regina.”</p>
<p>“<em>Wow</em>.”</p>
<p>Emma laughed as she shrugged on her coat. “Alright, time to nail this son of a bitch.” She dropped a final kiss on his cheek before reaching for the door handle. “See you in a bit.”</p>
<p>After stepping out into the downpour, she jogged as quickly as she could to the front door of the office block, lifting her jacket over her head for as much protection from the elements as she could manage, but wasn’t convinced it would do much to abate her looking either washed out or a little drowned by the time she spoke to somebody from Gepetto’s. The receptionist recognised her from the day prior, and after waving in greeting immediately phoned up to the sixth floor to see if anybody was available to speak to her.</p>
<p>There was a bit of negotiating, but before long the office manager for Gepetto’s had come down to meet her and was escorting her back up to the sixth floor. She didn’t want to launch into the reason for her being there before she’d had a chance to look around the office, so to avoid spooking her Emma offered up some general lines of enquiry about the office structure with information she had managed to glean from the company website. Almost flattered by her interest, the office manager was only too keen to rattle off her answers for the duration of the lift ride until the doors finally reopened.</p>
<p>It took only a few steps out of the lift lobby for Emma to stop dead in her tracks – because there, leaning against the desk at the entrance to the office, stood her mark.</p>
<p>Emma felt herself tense, instinctively readying herself to run, but she had to forcefully remind herself that August W. Booth had no reason to know who she was in the slightest, which would make everything a lot easier. He was here, that was what counted, and now she just had to figure out a way to get a pair of cuffs on him.</p>
<p>The office manager had been speaking, and Emma tried to tune back in and pick up where they left off, and as they reached the desk August looked up at the two of them.</p>
<p>And immediately straightened, his eyes widening the moment they landed on her.</p>
<p>Emma schooled her expression into one of nonchalance – but it made no difference. She could spot a skip about to hit the ground running a mile off, and she reached for her handcuffs as subtly as she could manage.</p>
<p>“Emma?” August gaped.</p>
<p>She was momentarily taken aback – <em>what the –?</em></p>
<p>If possible, August looked more stunned than she felt. “How did you find me?”</p>
<p>His gaze dropped to her side and landed on the handcuffs.</p>
<p>He was moving before she even had a chance to process what was happening.</p>
<p>“<em>Hey!</em>” she barked, immediately sprinting after him. Somebody was yelling something from behind her, and the office around her became a blur of colour and noise as she shot through it, narrowing her focus on the man running in front of her.</p>
<p>She collided heavily with someone she couldn’t duck out of the way of, and had just enough time to distractedly mumble an apology before taking off again, and in a beat she realised where he was heading – the stairwell toward the fire exit. There wasn’t enough time to get out her phone and warn Killian, she just hoped he’d be ready in case she didn’t catch him before he got out of the building.</p>
<p>August wrenched open the door to the stairwell, pulling at a filing cabinet beside it until it crashed into the ground, sending a <em>whoosh</em> of papers and folders scattering out onto the floor. Beside it some office workers had gasped, and Emma yelled at them to jump out of the way as she approached, skipping past documents that might slip her up and leaping over the cabinet to the door.</p>
<p>Her skip was already a flight of stairs down and Emma wasted no time following him.</p>
<p>“Hang on a second!” she demanded, but there was no indication on whether he had heard her. “I just want to talk to you!”</p>
<p>
  <em>And arrest you, and claim the reward, but why the fuck would you care?</em>
</p>
<p>She chased him all the way to the ground floor, where she heard him letting out a string of expletives against the sound of metal rattling in its frame – he was stranded at the exit, unable to get the door open and scrambling for any way out.</p>
<p>Emma slowed her pace as she descended the final flight, trying to get a good look at him – he looked exactly like the photos they had been provided with, except for the shadow of a few days without shaving scratched around his chin. His leather jacket was battered and his hair unkempt, and he was currently grunting with effort as he thrust his shoulder into the door in an attempt to get it open.</p>
<p>“Look, just give it a rest,” Emma growled, “you had to know this was coming. You missed a <em>pretty</em> important court date.”</p>
<p>August paused his efforts, turning to glance at her nervously. “You can’t arrest me.”</p>
<p>“Three counts of property damage, theft and disturbing the peace say otherwise. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”</p>
<p>“No, <em>you</em> can’t arrest me. It can’t be <em>you</em>.”</p>
<p>Emma was getting fed up with his bullshit. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”</p>
<p>The look August was giving her was pained. “I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>Then he slammed his fist through the glass protecting the fire alarm.</p>
<p>The stairwell exploded with sound.</p>
<p>Overhead the alarm bell rattled blisteringly loud, August was swearing profusely at his bloodied hand, and the magnetic lock on the door buzzed open. As the man stumbled out of it, the stairwell was flooded with light and the sound of rain rattling against the alleyway outside – but Emma didn’t notice any of that.</p>
<p>From the moment the alarm sounded, a searing pain had blasted through her temples and she cried out; something was rattling, <em>cracking</em> against the casing of her skull and she gasped her way through it, stumbling down onto the ground. She couldn’t see anything, her vision was blinded by spots of white, and it was all she could do to fight for some semblance of control over her motor functions. Everything hurt. Something was stealing the breath from her lungs, and although she knew it couldn’t be real, she felt her fingertips curling into damp soil underneath her.</p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t know where I am.</em>
</p>
<p>Emma could feel hot tears rolling down her cheek as she tried to think of anything except how much her head was throbbing, the alarm blaring across her senses as if it had come from inside her. It was too much. It was all too much.</p>
<p>
  <em>Killian? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t know where I am. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I thought –</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I thought I heard your voice. </em>
</p>
<p>It was the cold that she remembered most about Brooke House. That terrible, awful absence of warmth, that numbness, that sense that her limbs were not truly moving because she could no longer feel them. It was ice, it was loss, it was knowing the world she knew was gone forever even though just seconds earlier it had swirled in a storm of obsidian light, and Killian –</p>
<p>Killian had wanted to save her.</p>
<p>And she had told him not to.</p>
<p>
  <em>Killian – Killian, don’t – ! </em>
</p>
<p>The sky was full of birds.</p>
<p>Her parents left her on the side of the road on a crisp autumn morning, while the sky was alive with birdsong.</p>
<p>
  <em>Emma – </em>
</p>
<p>There was too much sound, too much light; she couldn’t see. Something hurt. It was her. Around her the forest breathed slowly, in, and out, and the old wood of the house creaked unheard. It had nothing else to show her. She had read all the books. She had written on all the walls. She pleaded for the chance to walk amongst the wood, to feel the crunch of delicate, copper leaves underfoot and the patter of rain on her skin.  </p>
<p>She waited for him to come home.</p>
<p>The sky was full of birds.</p>
<p>“Emma!”</p>
<p><em>I thought I heard your voice</em>.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>It was 2:17am.</p>
<p>Robert should have been home hours ago, and Belle couldn’t sleep for worry.</p>
<p>He had gone to that wretched house, she knew it. Nothing else had been able to impress upon his waking mind for <em>weeks</em>, he was consumed by whatever he had found in there and left Belle to mind their livelihood alone. Stood in the centre of the shop floor, the room lit in an orange glow drifting through the blinds in strips, it somehow felt worse than the odd looks the townsfolk had been giving her when they came in to sell their wares, or find something for someone else.</p>
<p>The pawnshop had always been Robert’s, not hers. It was his name on the door, <em>Gold</em>. It didn’t matter that she’d taken his name when they married – everyone in Storybrooke still thought of her as ‘that funny Belle French’. She had always been something of an outlier in the realm of small-town opinion; but then, that was something she and her husband had always shared.</p>
<p>Brooke House was something he had pointedly kept from her.</p>
<p>He refused to take her there. He refused to discuss his work there. Every day he departed with trinkets and materials and vials of vividly coloured liquids of which she hadn’t a clue of the contents. Something powerful had captured his attention so desperately within its walls, something that made him see right through her.</p>
<p>And tonight – <em>tonight</em>, he had practically prowled about the shop until he had finally departed out into the night.</p>
<p><em>You’ll see</em>, he had told her. <em>You’ll see</em>.</p>
<p>Well, she was tired of waiting.</p>
<p>She wanted her husband <em>back</em>.</p>
<p>She stalked into the backroom to retrieve her coat and changed out of her heels and into something sturdier, boots more suited to clambering through woodland than minding the pawn shop.</p>
<p>It was just as she was shrugging on her coat that she heard the tinkling of the bell over the front door, and her heart leapt hopefully.</p>
<p>“I was <em>just</em> coming to –”</p>
<p>She cut herself off once she saw it was not her husband who had entered, and shielded her disappointment in an expression of reproach.</p>
<p>“It’s the middle of the night,” she pointed out sharply. “We’re <em>closed</em>.”</p>
<p>The intruder stood their ground.</p>
<p>“It won’t do any good,” they said, quietly. “Your husband isn’t coming back.”</p>
<p>Belle stopped dead in her tracks.</p>
<p>“But I think you already know that.”</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>It was a migraine.</p>
<p>Just a migraine.</p>
<p>All the symptoms were there; white spots, sensitivity to light and sound, nausea – a rapid onset migraine. Their skip had gotten away, and when Killian had come looking for her amongst all the chaos August left behind, he had found her slumped at the bottom of the fire escape and had immediately taken her home. As it always did, time produced the most rational of explanations, even if Emma still had no idea how August W Booth had known who she was. The most logical reason was that somehow he had gotten in touch with the agency, or knew someone who had been able to tell him the name of the bail bondsperson who had been assigned to his case.</p>
<p>She had spent the afternoon recovering back in their flat, the blinds drawn and the bedroom door closed while Killian worked silently in the sitting room on their next case, and by the evening she felt back to her old self again. It had still made it difficult to resist Killian sitting her down and pleading with her to come and see the Bellevue coven at the weekend, to meet the Elsa he had told her so much about; if for no other reason than the home remedies that members of that community swore by when it came to migraines or insomnia, frequent ailments that kept catching Emma off guard.</p>
<p>Emma had no interest in ingratiating herself with the Bellevue coven, no matter how often he spoke of its charming members or how much he felt it might help her to connect with others who might have experiences with the otherworldly comparable to their brush with Brooke House. She had made it clear from the start; she didn’t believe a single soul could speak to what she had been through, and she was not interested in finding out.</p>
<p><em>This will </em>not <em>define me</em>, she had said, the day they had ridden themselves of the dagger for good.</p>
<p>She wanted to believe that. She wanted to look forward. Minor setbacks aside, she still didn’t feel sitting around with a group of born-again self-ascribed ‘witches’ talking about how <em>grand and mysterious </em>the universe was would do anything for her focusing on her real life. It was <em>this</em> life she wanted to contemplate, not the one before, or the hell that awaited them after.</p>
<p>Besides, she knew what hell was. Hell was nothing. Barren, a void the soul was left to wander within.</p>
<p>Still, she could sense how important it was to Killian that she make this effort, and after all the considerate care he had given her over the last week – the appeal, the flood, the rescue after her migraine – he deserved her giving it a shot. Apparently they were having some sort of midsummer celebration anyway, and the evening didn’t have to amount to anything more than a fancy garden party. Emma preferred the idea of facing this part of Killian’s life without having to commit to making it part of hers too.</p>
<p>There were still significant drawbacks, though.</p>
<p>“You didn’t tell me there was a dress code,” she grumbled.</p>
<p>After arriving, they had been directed to walk around the side of Elsa’s house through a pathway of tall, sweeping archways plaited with ivy and lavender, leaving the path with a distinctly herbal and earthy scent. It reminded her of Regina’s garden. The evening was balmy and gentle, the setting sun painting the sky in broad, orange strokes, and the mellow flutter of a flute or clarinet could be heard drifting from the clearing ahead of them. Emma could already taste woodsmoke in the back of her throat.</p>
<p>Killian had kept her hand folded tightly in his, as if he were afraid if he let go she would turn around and go home. She wasn’t sure how to reassure him, since she wasn’t entirely convinced she wouldn’t do it herself.</p>
<p>“There’s not a dress code,” Killian frowned. “At least not one they told me about.”</p>
<p>“You’re <em>wearing </em>it!” she pointed out accusatorily.</p>
<p>In keeping with the warmer temperature, Emma had opted for a simple pair of denim shorts and boots, with a dark green blouse she had thought would look suitably on theme for an event clearly thrilled about nature. Killian, on the other hand, looked far smarter in a crisp white shirt and a tan pair of chinos. White, she was now realising as they emerged into the main event, was clearly the theme.</p>
<p>A large bonfire had been stacked in the centre of the clearing and had been lit from the bottom, so currently the flame was only licking at the edges of the wood lying nearest its centre, but she could imagine as the night wore on it would grow significantly in size. There were around thirty, maybe forty guests scattered around, speaking jovially to one another, some lingering near a few fold-up tables laden with a wide array of food – that, at least, hadn’t been an exaggeration on Killian’s part. Just at a glance she could spot trays of roast beef, stuffed bell peppers, smoked salmon and an entire glass bowl filled with strawberries.</p>
<p>It was like walking into a garden of plenty, alive with wildflowers and the scent of freshly baked bread, while a small wind band played towards one edge of the clearing.</p>
<p>Most of the women were dressed in white or wearing light floral patterns, and every man she could see was sporting an identical white shirt to Killian’s. He fit right in – and to her chagrin she could now see how her attempt to slip into the background was now setting her apart.  </p>
<p>“It’s not a dress code,” Killian waved her off, “it’s nothing like that.”</p>
<p>Emma spread her free hand across the clearing in a pointed sweep.</p>
<p>Killian had the good grace to look a little sheepish. “Maybe it’s a <em>little</em> like that. But me – this – it’s a <em>complete </em>accident, I swear.”</p>
<p>He looked so eager to reassure her that she couldn’t help but laugh. There was something so light about his countenance tonight, something that buoyed her along without even trying – the entire drive there he had barely been able to contain whatever energy he had been carrying, drumming his fingers restlessly on the wheel of the Chevelle. She couldn’t tell if it was excitement about finally bringing her along to one of these things, or if he was just enthusiastic about getting out of the city, but either way she couldn’t really remember a time he had been this animated about an evening out. It was hard to find fault in that kind of simple delight. It made her feel like they were teenagers again.</p>
<p>“Fine, whatever,” she said, but she was grinning. “You promised me food.”</p>
<p>“Right, definitely,” he smiled back. “But for fear of appearing <em>too</em> obvious so soon after we’ve arrived, how about we start with a drink?”</p>
<p>“Sure.”</p>
<p>Her every assent seemed to have the instantaneous effect of brightening his mood even further. “Anna’s been going on about her punch for <em>weeks</em> – oh, Anna, I’ll make sure I introduce you –”</p>
<p>He tugged at their joined hands, but after a split-second Emma resisted.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you go and grab some for us and I’m just gonna… take it all in.” She looked around the garden. “Give me a sec to get my bearings.”</p>
<p>Killian didn’t question her, just squeezed her hand before letting go and promised to be back in a few moments.</p>
<p>She wasn’t sure what it was, but there was a lot of sensory information to process. Her life with Killian was so insular, they didn’t spend a lot of time at big events – they both preferred places they could blend into the background. Attending a gathering of this size was probably something she hadn’t done since the last time she was in Storybrooke – something in her gut twinged at the thought. David and Mary Margaret would have loved a celebration like this, something like the Miner’s Day celebration the town used to throw every November. Good food, warm feelings; it was everything she and Killian used to good-naturedly mock when they were teenagers.</p>
<p>Tonight, while her partner’s enthusiasm was sweet, it was still a little jarring; especially when she remembered exactly <em>what</em> this community was, and it wasn’t just small-town eccentricities.</p>
<p>This was a coven, she had to keep reminding herself. Practitioners. Like Regina.</p>
<p>At least they didn’t appear to be making any <em>sacrifices</em> on that bonfire.</p>
<p>“Hey, Killian!” Emma watched as a petite blonde woman called Killian over to the group she was standing with, and he pivoted in their direction on his way to the refreshment table. She was smirking, and her hair was piled up messily on the top of her head. “Help us out, we need a tie-break.”</p>
<p>Emma couldn’t hear what she said after that, but watched as one of the men clapped him on the back, another one shaking his hand enthusiastically. He never really mentioned having friends in the Bellevue coven, but she supposed he must do – he had been going every week for over two months. In the sea of white among the grass, he all but disappeared into the crowd.</p>
<p>Watching him speak to them, she realised it really <em>did</em> remind her of when they were teenagers. Specifically, of when she had been sitting on the floor of Brooke House, her knees curled up to her chest as he traced a pentagram into the floorboards in thick black marker. Behind them their friends had bickered over the spirit board, and as the cold settled in she had watched Killian gently reaching for something beyond all their understanding.</p>
<p>The woman said something quiet and Killian laughed, a hearty and warm sound, but the sick feeling in Emma’s stomach only deepened. He <em>fit</em> here. Somewhere he could keep reaching.</p>
<p>“You must be Emma.”</p>
<p>Emma turned, and saw she was being approached by a taller woman, her bright blonde hair tied into a plait which hung over her right shoulder. Like everyone else, she was dressed all in white, in a long, light gown that trailed down to her feet.</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah,” Emma replied; if Killian had told them she was coming, her vivid green blouse likely gave her away. “Hi.”</p>
<p>“I’m Elsa,” the woman said, holding out a dainty hand for her to shake. Her palm was smooth, her skin so light it was almost white.</p>
<p>“Right,” Emma said, understanding dawning. “So this is your place?” Elsa nodded. “Great to meet you. This all seems… it looks great.”</p>
<p>Elsa smiled demurely. “We’re just lucky the weather held.”</p>
<p>Given Seattle’s propensity for continually being soaking wet, Emma couldn’t help but agree. “Pretty much.”</p>
<p>Killian was still standing with the other group, and while Emma could see him attempting to pivot away from them, apparently whatever animated discussion they were having kept drawing him in.</p>
<p>“You know, Killian has told me a little about you.”</p>
<p>Her hackles immediately rose. “Oh yeah?”</p>
<p>“He thinks of you all the time,” she continued. “I can tell he looks for you in the work we do here.”</p>
<p>Without her really noticing, the flutes had drifted into a different song, something that floated drowsily across the still air. It felt like she should be relaxed, like every variable had been carefully constructed to draw out the hazy, heady sensation of early summer, but Emma just couldn’t feel herself falling into it like she should.</p>
<p>Still, she didn’t want to disturb the tranquil atmosphere by getting too defensive with someone Killian often spoke highly of.</p>
<p>Instead, the corner of her mouth tugged upwards. “And what work is that?”</p>
<p>To her credit, Elsa laughed. They both knew there was little point in being coy.</p>
<p>“I actually think you and I are a lot alike,” the other woman mused, a cheerful twinkle in her eye.</p>
<p>Alright, she’d bite. “How d’you figure?”</p>
<p>Elsa took a long, slow breath, averting her eyes to the rest of the gathering. A man and a woman standing near the fledgling bonfire had begun swaying to the music.</p>
<p>“Putting up walls, it works to keep the bad things out. And keeping everything contained inside, all those… messy, confusing instincts – that stops us from hurting others.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Nobody can control this door except you, Emma.</em>
</p>
<p>“But it also closes us off to them completely.”</p>
<p>Emma felt herself beginning to bristle; she wasn’t sure she would appreciate a lecture about Killian Jones from somebody who had known him all of five minutes. Not to mention she was growing uneasy with the amount that Killian had perhaps chosen to confide in a complete stranger.</p>
<p>“What exactly has he been saying about me?”</p>
<p>“Almost nothing,” Elsa was quick to assure her, but it was the <em>almost</em> that stuck. “Which I think is quite telling in itself.”</p>
<p>Emma said nothing.</p>
<p>“Answer me this – why do you think Killian chooses to come here?”</p>
<p>She let out a huff of frustration. Where the hell was Killian with that drink?</p>
<p>“I don’t know, just gotta scratch that witchy itch?”</p>
<p>Elsa hummed indulgently, but she was undeterred by Emma’s attitude. “I’ve asked him myself, but I wasn’t convinced by his answer. I’m not sure <em>he </em>even knows.” After a beat, she clasped her hands in front of her. “But I think he comes to us because he can’t talk to you. And believe me, we’re a poor substitute.”</p>
<p>“He can talk to me,” Emma replied indignantly.</p>
<p>Elsa met her gaze, hard. “About everything?”</p>
<p><em>This will </em>not<em> define me</em>.</p>
<p>They were supposed to be the same. Two complementary halves of the same brave, desperate fighter. Kids who had been lost together, who had been found, together. That was the promise they’d made before Brooke House, and the one they had fervently renewed in the wake of it.</p>
<p>There weren’t supposed to be things they could not talk about. Quiet, desperate things they could not say.</p>
<p><em>So good of you to finally come and see me</em>.</p>
<p>She became distantly aware that she hadn’t said anything for a few prolonged seconds, and she turned away from the sharpness of Elsa’s gaze.</p>
<p>“I’m tired of letting the past control us.”</p>
<p>“The past is who we are,” Elsa said simply. “Don’t you think he deserves to find meaning in whatever he has experienced?”</p>
<p>Emma folded her arms. <em>Meaning</em>. Was that what he was supposed to find here?</p>
<p>“That’s easy,” she muttered. “There’s no meaning in any of it. The only thing I know for certain is that darkness doesn’t discriminate.”</p>
<p>
  <em>It was born with you, it died with you, and sometimes, in the middle, it liked to remind you that it was there.</em>
</p>
<p>Elsa murmured her agreement. “It does not.”</p>
<p>“There we are!” Killian’s voice was loud and cheerful as he sprung up beside them, holding two glasses of a vivid pink liquid. “Sorry for the delay, Tink was just – well, she’s a royal pain in my arse, that’s all you need to know.”</p>
<p>He held out one of the glasses to her and Emma took it gingerly. It tasted like something citrusy. The sudden change in atmosphere left her feeling a little off-balance.</p>
<p>“I see you met Elsa – the place looks fantastic, by the way.”</p>
<p>Elsa bowed her head in pleasure.</p>
<p>“I’m glad you could make it. How’s your hand?”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Killian’s cheerful visage faded for just a moment as his gaze dropped to his bandaged palm, “it’s fine. Barely even feel it.”</p>
<p>Once again, Emma was struck by the idea that there was more to that story than he had told her.</p>
<p>“I better go do the rounds. But Emma – if you ever want to talk, I want you to know this is a safe space. For anyone.”</p>
<p>Something warm burned beneath her collar as she felt Killian turn his eyes on her. Elsa seemed to be expecting some kind of acknowledgement of her offer, so Emma cleared her throat.</p>
<p>“Yeah. Thanks.”</p>
<p>Mercifully, after that Elsa left them.</p>
<p>“What was that about?” Killian asked curiously.</p>
<p>Emma took a large gulp of the punch. “I think she was trying to read my mind.”</p>
<p>Killian laughed.</p>
<p>“She doesn’t read <em>minds</em>.”</p>
<p>“Or cast a spell on me.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be daft,” he snorted, before slinging his free arm around her waist. “Did you want food?”</p>
<p>Emma sighed heavily. “Oh, God. Please.”</p>
<p>This was going to be awful.</p>
<p>-/-</p>
<p>This is what happened: it was not, in fact, awful.</p>
<p>It was this: the food was great, the company wasn’t bad, and Killian was alive with good humour and enthusiasm, carrying her nimbly from moment to moment.</p>
<p>It was this: finding herself in thoughtful conversations with other guests and forgetting momentarily that Killian was not even with her, on the occasions she found herself without him.</p>
<p>It was this: listening contentedly as Elsa caught the attention of the crowd, recounting fond memories of the solstice from her childhood in Denmark, and reciting the great tale of the battle between the Oak King of daylight and the Holly King of night. During Litha, on the day of the summer solstice, the Holly King would win, from then on claiming every day until Yule and making each darker than the last. It was a fanciful thing, but its whimsy somehow fit exactly right into the festivities of the Bellevue coven; and surprisingly, Emma did not mind.</p>
<p>It was this: the bonfire catching with a glorious roar, sparks shooting up into the midnight blue sky as the night grew darker, and allowing Killian to tug her into its glow and twirl her around to the lolling beat of the music.  </p>
<p>And it was this: allowing herself to forget, for a single second, that there was anything at all in the world to fear.</p>
<p>And then she saw the scaled man.</p>
<p>He was standing at the entrance to the garden, by the ivy archways, his entire figure shrouded in darkness. She couldn’t make out his features, but the nasty curve of his mouth and the basket of spun gold twine at his feet gave him away. Something in Emma’s chest lurched, she wanted to throw up. She reached for Killian but Killian was not at her side, Killian was talking to Elsa, and maybe it was that, or maybe it was the cold, hard longing that had settled in her chest ever since she had called David, or maybe it was the soft buzz of alcohol running through her, but she was caught by a wave of courage she had never before experienced.</p>
<p>The scaled man beckoned, and she followed with purpose.</p>
<p>He raised a hand toward her, she could feel the brittle and knurled edges of his fingernails against her cheek even twenty paces away, and she left the comfort of the fire behind her and began her walk into the black.</p>
<p>She would tell him. She would tell him <em>no</em>, he could not have her.</p>
<p>She wanted to be in the light.</p>
<p>And she would tell him so.</p>
<p>Except as she got closer, she realised it was not him at all, and she could not understand how she had ever thought it was. She balked, trudging through the blur of her recent memories, but no – when she had noticed him, when she had stood by the fire, it hadn’t been the scaled man at all, but a normal person. The state of it <em>being him</em>, and <em>not being him</em> existed simultaneously, and Emma shook her head to try and regain her focus.</p>
<p>Because the man standing at the edge of the garden was August W Booth.</p>
<p>“Did you see him?”</p>
<p>It took Emma a few moments to realise August was speaking to her.</p>
<p>Her lips parted. “Did I see… who?”</p>
<p>August let a breath of dubious laughter, shaking his head. “Yeah, okay.”</p>
<p>Emma was still struggling to marry up the two scenarios in her mind – she was at the Litha celebration with the coven from Bellevue, and August W Booth was standing in front of her.</p>
<p>“Look,” he continued, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I thought I’d come and find you before you had a chance to find <em>me</em> again. You’re very good at what you do, Emma.”</p>
<p>A thousand questions flashed across her mind, too quickly for her to count. <em>What was he doing here? How did he find her? What did he want?</em></p>
<p>“How do you know my name?”</p>
<p>That one, though, had been weighing on her mind for longer. August hesitated, glancing furtively over his shoulder, then peering past Emma out toward the bonfire. Whatever he saw did not seem to appease him.</p>
<p>“Not here,” he said quietly. “Don’t you feel it?” Despite the warmth of the evening, Emma shivered.</p>
<p>“No,” she said, although she was certain she did.</p>
<p>“You can find me at this address,” August continued, pulling a business card from his pocket and holding it out to her. Without thinking, she took it. “And, yeah, you can come and arrest me if you like, but I think you know that if you do you won’t get what you want.”</p>
<p>Emma eyed him curiously. “And what’s that?”</p>
<p>The corner of August’s mouth curled upwards, and his dark eyes glittered in the distant firelight; the world had granted him a secret, and he was thrilled to be its keeper.</p>
<p>“The truth,” he said. “The truth we both know.”</p>
<p>He nodded behind her. When Emma turned, she could see Killian standing motionless by the fire, staring straight at them – he looked puzzled, as if he were trying to make out who she was talking to. She was certain that if he knew he would’ve already stormed over there.</p>
<p>“Bring your court jester, if you like,” August continued brightly, before brushing his eyes across the rest of the clearing. The dancing, the music, the fire. “If you can tear him away.”</p>
<p>Emma glanced over her shoulder again to look at Killian, but he wasn’t watching them anymore. He was staring into the centre of the flames with that same blank, vacant look she had seen for days.</p>
<p>When she turned back August had slipped away.</p>
<p>She stared at the business card in her hands.</p>
<p><em>The truth</em>, he had said. Which truth was that?</p>
<p>The sky had turned black, and the breath of the wind through the trees was stirring something strong, but uneasy, inside of her; the air tingled with woodsmoke and possibility, and Emma was ready.</p>
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